Estvarya
by Liz17
Summary: Post-manga AU. Against a backdrop of looming war, a blind Roy Mustang rides across the border with the Scar of Ishbal at his side and a Philosopher's Stone in his pocket to negotiate an end to the fighting and deliver the Stone to the Ishbalan Elders.
1. Chapters 1 through 5

Title: _Estvarya_

Author: mfelizandy

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 22,000+

Pairing/Characters: Roy Mustang, Scar. No pairings.

Warnings: Probably some non-explicit nudity at some point or another-Ishbalan mores on nudity don't line up perfectly with western ideas. Likely to be some supporting-OC death. Culture-building. Mild language and some violence.

**Disclaimer: ** Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix). Both 'Fullmetal Alchemist' and 'Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood' are produced by Funimation. Copyright for this property is held by Arakawa Hiromu, Square Enix and Funimation. All Rights Reserved

There's art for this story! Have a look at Rewire's sketches and the WIP of an collaborative painting she and Rufina are doing for a scene in Chapter 4.

Summary: Post-manga AU. One of the pieces left behind by the Promised Day is a shard of the legendary Philosopher's Stone. Everyone who knows what it is agrees that it can't be left to cause grief to future generations.

That's about all they agree on.

Against a backdrop of looming war, a blind Roy Mustang rides across the border with the Scar of Ishbal at his side and a Philosopher's Stone in his pocket, on a mission to negotiate an end to the fighting and deliver the Stone to the Ishbalan Elders. Somehow, two of the least likely messengers Ishvarra could have picked must find a way to not only work together but also to save both their people and themselves.

**Thank You To: **_havocmangawip_ and _Sgt. Jody Sunday_ (ret) for their patience and wonderful technical advice on paraplegia and blindness, respectively.

_**One**_

"You're damn cruel, Dr. Marcoh." Jean Havoc took a long drag on his cigarette, and let the smoke filter out his nose.

"That's a harsh thing to say," Kain Fury objected.

"True, though," Jean countered. He draped his forearms between his knees and pinned Tim Marcoh with his eyes. "A week ago I was retired military, busy thinking about ways to rearrange the shop so I could reach to do more of the restocking and taking my girlfriend for a little private picnic by the river. Here I am a week later, and I've got a decision to make, and whatever I decide, I'm gonna wish I did something else for the rest of my life."

"Colonel Mustang wanted me to offer the Stone to you," Marcoh said. "He insisted that you need it more than he does."

"That's not his decision," Jean answered bluntly. "How many people are there inside that thing?" He waved at Marcoh's breast pocket. "A couple dozen? A hundred? A thousand? Do you even know?"

"...no." Marcoh lowered his eyes. "Even if I knew how many lives had gone into creating it, there's no way to tell how many of them remain."

"That's what I thought." Jean took another slow puff and tapped the ash from his cigarette. "And there's no way to know how many people it would take to get my lower half working right again, is there?"

"It doesn't work that way," Marcoh admitted.

"Cruel." Jean sagged a little, watching Marcoh through narrowed eyes. "Damned cruel. I want to take what you're offering—god, I want it." He shifted his eyes away and put his cigarette back in his mouth, playing it back and forth between his lips for a moment before going on. "But I know that if it worked, if I got _anything_ back, I'd spend the rest of my life trying to do enough to convince myself I'd earned it. Paid off that debt."

"It has to be used," Marcoh said quietly. "Before I die, I'm going to see this cursed thing used up, so it can never fall into the wrong hands. I chose to offer Mustang the Stone because he's someone who _will_ spend his life trying to rebuild what was destroyed."

"Why not take it to Ishbal?" Fury asked. "You could help a lot of people there."

"Alchemy is taboo in Ishbal," Marcoh reminded the bespectacled younger man. "No practicing Ishbalan would allow me to so much as draw an array inside the house, much less restore lost limbs or cure illnesses with alchemy."

"But if it could fix them—or their kids—why would they deny themselves that?"

"As far as they're concerned alchemy's God's power," Jean answered. "So anyone who uses it is trying to be a god. Guess what they think of that."

Fury looked baffled. "But if they believe it's God's power, and humans can use it—isn't that evidence their God doesn't mind humans using alchemy?"

"Do I look Ishbalan to you?" Jean shrugged. "It's religion. It doesn't have to make sense."

"They were some of the first alchemists," Marcoh said in a regretful tone. "Most of the alchemical disciplines west of Ishbal are rooted in the work of those early scholars."

"I hadn't heard that before," Kain commented.

"It's not something many modern scientists care to admit," Marcoh answered. "We don't like the thought that we're following laws first discovered by people we think of as backward and superstitious."

"But they gave it all up," Fury said slowly. "Think about what they'd be if they hadn't."

"I think that's why they decided to give it up in the first place," Marcoh told him as he got to his feet. "They saw where alchemy would lead them."

"Hey, Boss." Jean wheeled himself over the doorjamb into his former CO's hospital room. "Did you pass the pop quiz?"

"I don't think it counts as a 'pop quiz' when I'm told about it a day before it happens," Roy Mustang answered.

"You're welcome," Jean grinned. "So did you pass?"

"Yes."

"They gave him partial credit on some of it," Vato Falman supplied. "He guessed "soup", and they gave him a point even though he was supposed to say what _kind_ of soup it was."

"I was not guessing," Mustang told him. "The label was upside down _and_ misspelled, and the can was on the bottom of the stack."

"That's a dirty trick," Jean said, not bothering to keep the humor out of his tone. "They must think you're about ready to go home, if they're pulling stuff like that."

"I'm glad you're enjoying monitoring my progress," Mustang said drily. He set down the stylus he'd been using to practice his touchscript and pinned Havoc with his sightless gaze. "I take it you've made your decision?"

Jean sobered. "Yeah."

"And?"

"I'll only do it if you do."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Jean-"

"Don't even _start_ talking about who's more guilty than whom, Boss," Havoc growled. "I was in Ishbal, too, remember."

"You didn't wipe out entire towns in less than an hour."

"I said _don't start_, Roy," Jean snapped. "Make up your mind. Are we going to use that Stone full of Ishbalans to fix ourselves or not?"

Mustang's eyes narrowed. "You're a nasty son of a bitch, Jean Havoc."

"Leave my mother out of this." Jean closed in on Roy's bed. "I've thought about it, and the only way I could possibly be worth the human lives in that Stone is if I had a way to influence the whole country, if not the whole world, for the better. Only way I can think of to do that is to get you up on my shoulders so you can see over the craziness—but you need working eyes to do that. So...it's both of us or neither of us."

"Jean," Mustang rubbed both hands over his face. "You can't do that. You can't put that decision on me."

"I just did. Now the question is," Jean nudged his former commanding officer's knee with one wheel, "what are you going to do about it?"

As far back as records, family history, and local folk memory reached, the lowlands of the southern end of the Orenya river valley had been ruled by tall, broad, and blond dukes, with the occasional tall blond duchess ruling as a regent. Paintings of them marched up and down the long corridors of the family's manor house, long-gone patriarchs and matriarchs watching the current generation with expressions that ranged from gently amused to ruthlessly severe. All of them, though, had an air of complacent arrogance that told the viewer just how high Armstrong standards were...and that he didn't quite measure up yet.

The man who walked along the third-floor corridor was also tall, broad across the chest, and generally stern of expression. There, however, the similarities ended. The stranger's deep brown skin contrasted with the pale faces and hands of the ancestral Armstrongs. His clothes were plain and unadorned against the rich velvets, silks, and embroidery of the dukes. Most startling, however, were his eyes. Most of the Armstrongs had had light blue or green eyes. The stranger's eyes were a deep red, and they looked out from the center of a wide X of stark white scar tissue that stretched from his forehead to his cheeks.

"Mr. Scar?" The maid curtsied as the red-eyed man turned toward her. "Lady Olivia and Lord Alexander sent me for you, sir. They are waiting with guests in the conservatory, sir."

"Guests?" The man known only by the mark on his face moved with a stride more accustomed to covering miles of open country on foot than treading the thick carpets and parquet floors of a manor house. The maid hurried to follow him.

"Yes, sir. Lady Olivia asked me to tell you they've come to see you specifically, sir."

"There aren't many who know that I still live," The Scar of Ishbal paused to look back at the maid. "Fewer still who know where to find me."

"Would you like me to show you to the conservatory, sir?" The maid lifted her eyebrows and her chin a little.

The Ishbalan's expression lightened just a fraction. "I could find it, but as there are people waiting for me, I will follow you."

Major General Olivia Mila Armstrong should have looked out of place. She was dressed in full military uniform, with a loaded automatic pistol holstered under her starched jacket and a ruthlessly functional saber sheathed on her hip. Major Miles, her aide, stood behind her. He was also fully uniformed and armed, his stance relaxed and his expression calm. They were the picture of perfect military command officers.

The setting was anything but military. What the Armstrongs referred to as the conservatory was more of a glassed-in water garden and aviary, complete with small streams populated by schools of colorful fish and frogs living among greenery collected from every corner of the earth. Bright-colored songbirds fluttered and twittered in large wire-mesh cages tucked artfully among the trees.

The Major General's brother, Lord Alexander Luis Armstrong, fit the surroundings. His "morning suit", complete with gold cufflinks inlaid with precious stones to form the family crest, wouldn't have been out of place in the previous century. He was a giant of a man, but he was up and pulling out a chair for Riza Hawkeye before she could open her mouth to tell him to keep his seat. "Good morning, Lieutenant Hawkeye," he rumbled. "You are looking well and lovely."

"Is she?" Roy Mustang smiled as his aide took his hand from her elbow and set it on the chair beside the one Alex Armstrong courteously held for her. "That's good to hear—I've been getting reports that I've turned her prematurely gray."

The big man turned to look into the faint gray circles where Mustang had once had sharp black irises, and said in a tone of soft regret, "To my eyes she is the picture of good health, Colonel."

"I've been telling you I'm fine, sir," Hawkeye sat, allowing the Armstrong scion to move her chair into place under her. "Thank you, Major."

"Like he's going to believe you?" Jean Havoc sized up the narrow arched bridge crossing the stream between himself and the table, then backed up and carefully aligned his wheels. "If you lost a finger and he noticed you'd tell him he counted wrong."

"Do you need help, Lieutenant Havoc?" Alex Armstrong took a step in Havoc's direction.

"Nope, I've got it." Havoc eased himself over the bridge. "You could move a chair out of the way, though. I brought my own seat."

"Of course. I apologize, Lieutenant, I should have thought of that." Armstrong shifted the chair on Mustang's right aside.

"Don't worry about it. And don't call me Lieutenant, I'm retired." Havoc paused at the foot of the bridge to turn in place and sweep his eyes around the lavish horticultural display. "Impressive place you've got here. I thought the house was gutted in the fighting."

"The conservatory was protected, as you can see," General Armstrong said crisply. She pinned the last of the new arrivals with an ice-blue gaze. "I take it you're Tim Marcoh?"

"Yes." The doctor moved as slowly as a man thirty years his senior.

"Please make yourself comfortable, Doctor," Alex Armstrong put in. "Would any of you like some tea, or perhaps something more substantial, after your journey?"

"I wouldn't say no to a cup of coffee," Mustang answered.

"I wouldn't say no to a ham sandwich," Havoc added lightly.

Armstrong nodded, then made eye contact with the footman standing unobtrusively near the door. "Thomas, please ask Celestine to prepare some coffee and sandwiches for our guests." The man bowed and vanished without a sound.

"Now that the laws of courtesy have been satisfied, tell me what you're really doing here, Mustang," Olivia Mila Armstrong flicked her gaze from the Flame Alchemist to his lieutenants, then to Dr. Marcoh's thick-scarred face.

"We're here to see Scar," Mustang answered.

"Yes, and I've sent for him," the general replied. "But you're not here just to exchange pleasantries."

"No, I'm not," Mustang faced General Armstrong. "I don't want to explain it twice, though. As long as I'm imposing on your gracious hospitality, I'd like to have Major Miles hear this, too."

"I'm here," Miles spoke up.

Mustang's eyebrows rose. "I should have guessed you'd be within earshot. Good."

The door to the rest of the house opened, and the Scar of Ishbal strode through it, trailed by a middle-aged maid.

The big Ishbalan swept the group at the table with his eyes, then said, "Three State Alchemists at one table. What are you planning, I wonder?"

"Yeah, nice to see you again too," Havoc muttered.

"We have a problem, and we're here to ask for your opinion," Mustang answered.

"Or my help?" Scar chose a spot on a low wall near the table, and sat, resting his hands on his knees. "In exchange for lifting the price on my head, perhaps?"

"We have no right to ask anything of you or your people," Alex said soberly.

"No, we don't," Roy agreed. "That's why we're here. Dr. Marcoh—show him."

The doctor sighed, and turned in his chair, taking a small clamshell case from his jacket pocket. "This rightfully belongs to your people." He opened the case and offered it to the Ishbalan.

Scar hissed softly, and took the box from Marcoh's hand. "A Stone of Souls." He touched the thumb-sized piece of dull red crystal, then closed the case around it. "Why did you bring this to me?" He shot Havoc a penetrating look, then turned his eyes to Dr. Marcoh. "You could save lives with these deaths."

"Those deaths were Ishbalans," Dr. Marcoh answered. "I used it the day of the eclipse, and to heal wounds for a few days afterward."

"Why didn't you continue?" Scar shifted his gaze from Marcoh to Havoc to Mustang. "Doubtless there are many you could restore, with the power of souls in your hand."

"I'm not a god." The doctor lowered his face into his hands, hiding his eyes. "I can't make the decisions of a god. Who should I save, the mother of six children or the six-year-old child? The twenty-year-old soldier supporting his mother or the sixty-year-old farmer raising his dead son's children?" Tim Marcoh looked up at the Ishbalan vigilante with despair in his gaze. "I couldn't bear the weight of that responsibility, so I offered the Stone to Colonel Mustang."

"Then the colonel turned around and offered it to me," Havoc put in. "I decided I won't take it for my back unless he takes it for his eyes, too."

Mustang spoke up with his eyes pointed at his hands, tightly folded on the table. "I've made a lot of decisions for my men. Some of those decisions will haunt them, and me, until we're all dead. But this one...I know how I feel about what I did in Ishbal." He turned toward Scar. "You're the only Ishbalan I know of who understands what the Stone really is and why it imust/i be used up."

Scar's eyes widened a fraction, then he growled low in his chest. "Did you come here to ask my permission to use _my people_ to restore yourselves?"

"We're here to ask your opinion." Mustang's face and voice were both nearly expressionless. "We can't leave something with this kind of power lying around. Even if it weren't made of human lives, the Stone is far too dangerous to put into a vault or a museum. No matter how good the security is, sooner or later someone will figure out how to steal it—and that someone probably won't have the best interests of anyone but himself at heart."

"You-" Scar stopped, then his face twisted into a rictus of mixed rage and grief and he pressed the closed case to his scarred brow.

The silence stretched, and Mustang opened his mouth, then shut it again as Riza Hawkeye put her hand on his wrist and squeezed gently.

General Armstrong broke the silence with a curt question. "I'd like to know who told you Scar was alive, Mustang."

"And I'd like to know what you look like out of uniform," Mustang answered calmly.

"This is a matter of military security."

"I've been medically discharged, Major General." Roy lounged back in his chair. "You might want to check with your people and see about tightening your internal security."

"You're not in a position to play this game anymore, Roy," the general told him in the harsh ice of Briggs.

"Who said I was playing?"

"_Enough_." Scar lifted his head, his fingers closed tightly around the case containing the Stone. "It hardly matters how you knew I was here. I'll be leaving in the morning. This," he lifted the case "is something for the Elders to consider."

"That thing's a real hot potato." Jean Havoc followed the case with his eyes as Scar tucked it into a pocket.

"It's going to be harder to convince those from the camps that they're not walking into a trap without you to lead them," Miles' expression was grave.

"They would have believed me to be bait," Scar said flatly. "No one would believe that one who'd killed as many military officers as I have would be allowed to live by the military, except as a turncoat to lead more of his people to the slaughter."

"We can move the people from the camps without his help," Olivia Armstrong told her aide. "They don't have to trust us—they just have to go."

"Scar." Mustang turned back toward the Ishbalan. "I'd like to go with you."

"_What?_" The exclamation came from at least four voices.

"I'd like to go with you to Ishbal," Mustang repeated. "To ask your Elders whether they'd be willing to negotiate peace terms."

"Trying to commit suicide, Mustang?" The major general cocked an eyebrow.

"I'm sure this will disappoint you, Olivia, but no." Mustang kept his attention focused on Scar. "Think about it. What would make a stronger statement of sincerity?"

"Or threat." Hawkeye closed both her hands around Mustang's left one. "I can't protect you against an entire country determined to kill you."

"I know," Roy said gently. "That's why I'm not going to ask you to. I'm going alone."

"Are you out of your mind?" Havoc demanded. "There's taking a risk, and there's risking your life, there's walking up to your worst enemy naked and spitting in his face, then there's _this_."

"The Elders won't give you the Stone of Souls and their blessing," Scar interrupted. "I don't know what they _will_ do, but these are our dead."

Roy frowned. "Would all of you stop insulting my intelligence? I'm not suicidal, and I'm not expecting anyone to forget the past. This is an opportunity to demonstrate that the new rulers of this country want to end the bloodshed and are willing to back that up with real concessions. A Philosopher's Stone, brought by a former soldier in truly blind trust." His smile was thin. "If they kill me, they get a moment's revenge, followed by another pile of Ishbalan bodies. We do have roughly twenty thousand of their people locked up in the camps, after all. If they stop to think before they shoot, they'll hold their fire, and at worst send me home with a message to either send someone less blood-spattered or leave them alone."

"You thought this out ahead of time," Havoc accused.

"It was one of the options I considered," Mustang answered.

"Clever," the general commented. "Very clever, Mustang. If I keep you here, you and your people continue to be thorns in my side. If I let you go, but don't back whatever you say, you'll be interpreted as either an innocent martyr for your cause or a crippled soldier sacrificed by a new regime just as bloodthirsty as the last one. So not only do I have to allow this, I have to support it." She folded her arms. "Deftly played."

"You're making some assumptions that aren't necessarily valid," Roy finally shifted his gaze. "The choice of whether I go or not isn't yours to make, for starters."

"_You're_ assuming the Ishbalans _will_ stop to think before they shoot," Riza said tightly. "All it would take is one sentry with a rifle."

"They are an ancient and wise people," Alex Armstrong put in. "I've read what I can find of the histories of Ishbal, and what there is of a scientific record of the culture. Many of their central teachings counsel forbearance and forgiveness."

"They're still human, and there are limits to what a human can bear." Dr. Marcoh spoke up. "I'm responsible for forging the Stone. I'll go."

"You're a good doctor and a good man, but you don't have the people or political skills to negotiate on this scale," Mustang told him.

"I can at least _see_ a gun pointed at me," Marcoh shot back.

"His blindness might buy him a chance to argue his case," Miles broke in. He addressed Scar. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but doctrine says that once God has imposed judgement for a crime—like striking a man blind—that's the end of it."

"That's a child's simplification of the text," Scar answered. "And there are many who would rather face exile than allow a State Alchemist to live."

"Huh." Jean turned from the frowning Ishbalan to his also-frowning former commanding officer. "Guess you'll have to think of something else, Boss."

Mustang lifted his chin. "Are you refusing to take me with you, Scar?"

Scar's brows lowered, and he didn't answer for a long moment. Finally he sighed. "Your life is yours to risk. I will guide you to the Elders if you insist." His tone hardened. "But you should understand that I'm in no position to speak on your behalf."

"I wouldn't ask that of you," Mustang replied.

"I'm going with you," Riza said, gripping Roy's hand tightly.

"No, you're not. You're going to stay here and run my intelligence empire."

"Sir-"

"It's not open to debate, Lieutenant."

Havoc turned to Alex Armstrong. "So—how long a head start do you think she'll give him? I'm laying odds it's less than an hour."

"That would be a death sentence for both of them," Armstrong said gravely.

Havoc blinked. "Run that by me again?"

"Think of how it would appear to the Ishbalan Elders," the giant alchemist said. "Then help us talk the colonel out of this."

The rural train station was all but deserted at this hour. The sleepy stationmaster had waved the mismatched party through the gates to the platform with barely a glance. Major Alex Luis Armstrong, badly disguised as a local taxi driver, had busied himself with the loading of baggage, trying without success to conceal tears and sniffling as masculine snorts of effort.

"Last chance to change your mind, Boss." The clipped speed of Jean Havoc's words gave away his tension.

"Are you suggesting there's something wrong with the one I have?" Roy Mustang answered lightly.

"Hell yeah, there's something wrong." Havoc exchanged a glance with Riza Hawkeye, then a warier look with the Scar of Ishbal. "You're getting onto a train to share a compartment with the Scar, going to _Ishbal_, without taking so much as Hawkeye or a tank division with you."

"I'm not going through this again, Jean." Mustang took a few steps and offered his hand. "I'll talk to you soon."

Havoc sighed, then gripped the Flame Alchemist's hand. "Don't get yourself killed, or if there is some kind of afterlife I'll hunt you down and kick your ass."

"You'll have to take a number," Hawkeye said quietly, without a trace of humor in her tone.

"You two are terrible well-wishers to have at a departure." Mustang smiled a little. "Put it on my calendar—when I get back I'll have to take a few hours to educate you both on how to do it right."

Scar moved to Mustang's side, and murmured, "The train will leave soon."

"Right." Roy turned his face toward Riza Hawkeye, and for a moment the calm professional mask dropped, and he opened his arms. "Riza—will you indulge me?"

Hawkeye's eyebrows shot up, and she hesitated for just an instant, then stepped into Roy's embrace. He turned his face toward her hair and murmured something too low for other ears to catch, pressed his lips to her cheekbone for just an instant, then stepped away to reach for Scar's arm.

Havoc stared in wide-eyed bewilderment, and watched in silence as the unlikely pair of traveling companions boarded the train. The locomotive let out a shrill whistle, then the train jerked and began to roll. Only after the clack-clack of wheels on rails had faded to nothing did Jean turn his chair to Riza and move closer. He pitched his voice low in deference to the night. "What did he tell you?"

Hawkeye startled a little, then turned to Havoc, taking something finger-sized from between the waistband of her trousers and the small of her back. "He said, 'I'll be back for this.'" She opened her hand and showed her companion the polished ivory chess queen.

_**Two**_

Roy laid his forearm along the compartment wall and stretched his fingers, then lined up his other hand. His traveling companion hadn't yet said a word.

"I suppose this looks ridiculous to you."

"Does it help?"

"Some," Roy answered. "I'd rather not walk into the wall in the middle of the night while looking for the bathroom." He found the light switch beside the compartment door and ran his fingers over it. "Do you want the lights off? I won't be much longer at this."

"Turn them off." Scar's bunk, converted from the forward-facing seat of the compartment, creaked a little.

Roy pushed the switch and turned toward the soft click that came from the lamps he knew were mounted in the ceiling. He measured the distance to his own bunk, the backward-facing one, heel-to-toe. Scar was silent. Roy reached up to the luggage rack above his bunk and dragged down his suitcase. His pajamas lay on top of the neatly packed trousers, on the left side. Shirts and his touchscript practice books on the right side. Underwear and socks tucked in along the front edge. Roy fingered the tag sewn in the collar of a shirt. _Single large triangle. White._ He paused and turned to "look" over his shoulder at Scar, then frowned and turned back to his suitcase. He changed into his pajamas without ceremony, folded his clothes and lay them in the suitcase—_single large square, black, narrow rectangle, light blue_—then wrestled the suitcase back onto the luggage rack and lay down on his bunk. The clicking of the wheels combined with the gentle swaying of the train and rocked Roy Mustang to sleep.

He woke with a jerk and reflexively grabbed for something instinct screamed was too close, _too close!_ A hand caught his wrist in a steel-strong grip.

"Roy Mustang. Do you know me?" The unruffled basso tones combined with the power in the hand holding Roy's wrist gave a warning that overrode half-dreamed panic.

"Scar." Roy licked his lips, and pulled a little against the Ishbalan's hold.

"Yes." Scar didn't let go. "Do you remember where we are, and your mission?"

"We're going to Ishbal. To talk to the Elders."

Scar let go and moved back in a rustle of fabric. "It's a good thing you didn't sleep gloved."

"I set my bedroom on fire once. That was enough." Roy rubbed his wrist and flexed his fingers. "What time is it?"

"The sun came up perhaps an hour ago. The steward brought a tray with food." There was a soft rustle of fabric, then Scar added, "The tray is on the floor near the door."

"Thanks—I'll try not to step in our breakfast." Roy got to his feet, and swayed a little with the rocking of the train for a moment. He reached up to the luggage rack above his bunk, and pulled his wash kit down.

"I've already eaten." Scar paused, then asked warily, "Do you need help?"

"No, thank you. I know how sleeping cars are laid out, and we're the second compartment from the front of the car." Roy traced the edge of his bunk with one knee, and stretched his other leg until his bare toes bumped the edge of the meal tray. "Did you fold out the table?" He bent to pick up the tray.

"No." Scar took the tray from Roy's hands. "But I will. Go wash."

Roy opened his mouth, then shut it and took his kit to the washroom.

"Scar?"

"Mm." The Ishbalan's grunt didn't encourage further conversation. Roy persisted anyway.

"What is it you're doing?"

"_Anar dkan_." Scar's clothing rustled. "Stretching exercises."

"In a sleeping compartment for an hour?"

"Nearer two hours—I started soon after I ate." The words came slowly, enunciated with strange care, as though the man wasn't entirely sure of them.

"So that's what woke me up." Roy pushed aside the touchscript practice book he'd been studying. "How long will it be before you're finished?"

"Some patterns are as long as a day in midsummer." There was another series of soft rustles, then a hand swept just over Roy's hair and he jerked back as fingertips brushed his eyebrows. Scar went on in that unnervingly level voice. "I'm modifying this one to make best use of the limited space." He pulled away in a swift rush.

Roy lifted his eyebrows. "Sounds interesting. I wish I could watch."

"If you could I wouldn't do this."

"Why not?"

"Would you allow a Cretan to study the ways soldiers of your country are taught?"

Roy frowned. "Point taken." He settled back into the seat and let out a sigh, then folded his arms. "But that brings up some important questions. I'd like to know more details of what I'm heading into. How many Elders are there? Do you know any of their names, or who's allied with whom? Who's most likely to at least hear me out, and who's going to shoot first and ask questions later?"

For several long moments, the only sound was the soft creaking and clicking of the wheels and springs under the car. Then Scar moved, and the seat opposite Roy squeaked a little. "_Rhas otsotoj tschafarixi._ I'm not sure how many Elders will be there, nor do I know their names." The preternaturally calm tone and Ishbalan accent disappeared in a rattatatat of clipped Amestrian. "What I can say is that the Elders of the northern tribes are more likely to let you live long enough to deliver your message than those of the south."

"Well, that's reassuring." Roy ran a hand over his face, then propped his elbow on the folding table fastened to the wall between the seats. "I'm open to suggestions."

"We're still within your country."

Roy frowned. "I'm not giving up and going home."

"Why not?"

Roy growled. "Do you really want to go through all this again? Everyone who knows about the plan has already told me I'm crazy and tried to talk me out of it."

"I remember. But tell me, Flame Alchemist—when the Elders ask, how will you convince _them_ that you aren't on a suicide mission?"

"I've got that worked out." Roy ticked his arguments off on his fingers. "One, if I wanted to kill myself there are a lot of easier ways to do it. Two, I'm carrying something the military wouldn't let go if this wasn't a legitimate attempt to end the fighting. Three, blind or not, I'm still a weapons'-grade alchemist and I was a high-ranking officer until recently." Roy's face tightened. "In a way I'm being offered as a hostage. Olivia and General Grumman are taking a risk, letting me out of the country without anyone to watch and silence me if necessary." Roy paused and raised an eyebrow at Scar. "Four—I'm traveling with iyou/i. That has to count for something."

"That could be interpreted in more than one way," Scar told him.

"What do you mean?"

"To some you were a war hero. To my people you were a bloodthirsty demon. Some called you a traitor before the eclipse. So—which are you, Roy Mustang?"

Roy was slow to answer. "I don't know. I suppose I'm just a man trying to figure out and do what's right."

"Mm." Scar's seat creaked again. "And which am I?"

Roy blinked. "Why would any of your people think you're a traitor or a demon?"

"Because I crossed the border to kill alchemists rather than staying to defend my home and my people," Scar answered quietly. "Because I used the power of God alone and without the guidance of the Elders." He paused, then went on reluctantly. "Some of the tribes trapped within your country consider me a hero. To many others I am idyehboj/i—a priest who broke his oaths." He shifted, then reached to pull the touchscript book toward himself. "Is this a teaching text?"

Roy closed his mouth on a question and answered, "Yes. I'm still getting the hang of reading with my fingers rather than my eyes."

Scar flipped one of the thick pages, then another. "Why do the lines grow smaller and closer together?"

"It's easier to distinguish bigger type set further apart, but that takes up a lot more space, and books in touchscript are oversized enough already. So the idea is to practice on smaller and smaller type until it's not much larger than ordinary book print." Roy waved in the general direction of the book. "I want to be reading at that size by the time we get where we're going, so I can type up my notes without wasting any more paper than I have to."

"What does this say?"

"Which page are you looking at?

"This one." Scar pushed the book into Roy's elbow and tapped the left-hand page. "Are these numbers?"

Roy found the top of the page, and slowly guided the first two fingers of each hand along the embossed lines, dots, and arcs. Lowering his head and peering wouldn't help, but he did it anyway.

Scar, to his credit, didn't interrupt or withdraw his question. Nor was there any impatience in the air. He simply waited.

Roy cursed softly, and started a line over twice before finally lifting his head. "There are some numbers, yes. It's an essay about the development of the locomotive."

"Some of it looks like the numbering used by our ancient...scholars who study the stars."

"Astronomers?" Roy ran his fingers over the book pages. "That's strange." He stopped to carefully examine the characters on the page. "It's a logical way to render numbers, though, if you don't mind learning a few extra symbols. 'Four million, one hundred and eighty-two thousand, three hundred and fifty' in four characters makes complicated math easier."

"Only easier to write. No easier to understand."

"So this is like the Ishbalan writing system?" Roy rested his hand on the book and turned his attention to his companion.

"Only in the...I don't know the word in this language. In our language they are the numbers of the _jhastovar_."

"What does that word mean?"

"A...'priest of the books'." Scar hesitated. "One who writes the records of the tribes and studies what there is to know."

"You've just told me more about your people in two minutes than I learned in all the time I spent in Ishbal." Roy leaned forward. "I'd like to learn at least enough of the language to greet the Elders politely when we get there."

Scar didn't answer, and the silence stretched.

Roy's expression of intense interest faded. "Is it taboo to teach an outsider?"

"Not many of your people have ever asked," Scar said slowly. He shifted. "Give me your hands."

"My hands?" Roy held out his hands.

"If you mean to greet an Elder of the tribes courteously you need to offer your hands." Scar flipped Roy's hands palms up. "Now—if you are greeting a man who is an Elder, you say, _'Kektan duarte eskuak warajtoj nayiz, Admi.'"_

"Say that again...slowly?"

By lunchtime Roy had learned to greet an Elder without insulting anyone's parentage.

"Dammit, I know I put it right here." Roy swept his hand under his bunk. "Scar, would you hand me my shoe?"

"I'm your guide, not your nursemaid."

"Fine. Guide me to my shoe."

"_Eyohnu ukakuin zyo kase aprexi iztarlohz setri enzahd_."

"Let me guess-that was 'payback's a bitch.'"

"No-'that which appears on the plate tastes not as sweet as that which one hunted and caught.'"

Roy sighed and shifted his knees to sweep more of the floor with his hands. "So, which do you enjoy more, dropping those little maxims or watching me crawl around on my hands and knees?"

Scar offered another comment in fluid Ishbalan.

Roy made an irritated noise in his throat, shifted, and exploded into frustrated cursing as his shoulder banged the table support and his startle thwacked his head into the tabletop.

Scar reached under the table and fished Roy out from under it. "Hush." It was a command, and both of the Ishbalan's hands took hold of Roy's head. Roy hissed as fingers found the bruised spot under his hair.

"Let go of me."

"There's no blood." Scar let go. "Would you like a wet cloth for it?"

"I'd _like_ my shoe." Roy shouldered Scar's knees aside and patted under his seat for his lost footwear.

"Then slow down and keep track of where you are—and remember that the train ran through a rough freight yard at a speed that almost threw us both out of bed last night."

"I'm not likely to forget my wash kit falling onto my chest in the middle of the night," Roy said grimly. "Have you had enough blind man slapstick yet? Or is this practice for a performance for the Elders?"

"I was only letting you learn from the oldest teacher," Scar answered mildly. "The children of the tribes might enjoy playing with a seeker who can't peek beneath the blindfold, though."

Roy stopped, and turned toward Scar, his expression mixed. "Am I dreaming, or did you just make something that could be a joke?"

Scar shifted on his seat, then tapped Roy's bruised shoulder with two fingers. "Is this a dream?"

Roy winced, then rubbed the offended shoulder a little. "So you do have a sense of humor. Huh—Jean Havoc just lost a bet."

"If there are bets on me I'd like to know what they are—and how to collect my fees for settling them." The raised eyebrow was there beneath the words.

Roy let out a sharp bark of laughter, turned to put his back to the wall beside the compartment door—then made a startled noise and fished a shoe out from under his rump. He ran his hands over it, confirming it was his and not one of Scar's, then dropped it into his lap and started laughing in earnest. It was the kind of helpless laughter that threatened to turn to sobs of despair, and after a few moments Scar moved again. Water sloshed from the glass sitting on the table, then a cold and wet handful of cloth pressed against the bump on Roy's head. Roy grimaced and sobered, lifting a hand to hold the cold compress. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Scar took hold of Roy's elbow and levered him to his feet, retrieving the precious shoe and laying it beside its mate on the floor as he settled Roy onto his seat. "I'm not trying to torture you."

"What are you doing, then?"

"I'm trying to talk to you the way the Elders will, if you're lucky."

Roy took a short breath of surprise, his eyes widening. "You mean they're going to tease me and talk in Ishbalan riddles? When I'm trying to _negotiate a cease-fire?_"

Scar sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't have tried. There is a saying among the tribes, Roy Mustang. We say, 'The wiser the soul, the deeper the water.' What the Elders say or do rarely has only one meaning."

Roy frowned. "So how am I supposed to know which one is the right meaning?"

Scar whuffed a bit. "I _am_ a poor teacher. Let me try again—one _sazamuz_ action has at least two meanings, both of them equally true. Like—a house can have three floors. The cellar is a place to store things, the ground floor is for cooking and to do the work of the day, and the second floor is the rooms for the children to sleep, but they are all part of one house."

Roy blinked. "That's going to complicate things."

"It's not impolite to ask for a little time to consider and to pray before you act. If you do, though, you'll be expected to go and think quietly for at least the rest of the day and the night."

"Believe me, I'm not planning to try and rush ianything/i in this." Roy adjusted the cloth on his head. "So—how does crawling around on the floor connect to that?"

"I had more than one reason for letting you search rather than telling you where your shoe was."

"You were testing me?"

"Yes."

Roy's eyes narrowed. "I can think of quite a few possible motives for making me hunt. One, you might have meant to remind me...not to take your help for granted. Or to force me to fall back on my training to find my way around and locate things by myself. If that's the case I'm betting either Jean or Riza or both put you up to it."

"You would lose that bet." Scar sounded unruffled. "Is that all you can think of?"

Roy lifted an eyebrow, then said thoughtfully, "My shoe and wash kit weren't the only things that the freight yard rattled out of place, were they?"

"No."

"So you picked up everything else, and you put my shoe in a place I wouldn't trip over it on my way to the washroom this morning." Roy flashed his teeth in a wolf's grin. "Not fair—but that was part of the point, wasn't it?"

"Part of it." Scar's voice held a note of satisfaction in it.

Roy chuckled. "I'm also pretty sure that whether or not you admit it, you enjoy seeing a former enemy fumbling on his knees." He refolded the wet rag and put it in the other hand. "You were goading me, to see what I'd do when I got frustrated. On top of all of that, you wanted to know whether I'd catch on to the game and figure out why you were playing it on me." Roy smiled a little. "Something that seems simple might be anything but."

"And the more you think about it, the more meanings it has." Scar hesitated, then offered, "My teacher once gave me a piece of stone the size of my hand, and told me to carry it with me everywhere I went."

"Without telling you why?"

"He told me that when I could tell him why he gave it to me, I would be free to do what I wanted with it."

"How long did you carry it?"

"Most of my fifteenth year."

Roy leaned forward, curiosity clear in his expression. "What was it he was trying to teach you?" He flashed a grin. "Or do I have to figure that out for myself?"

"How many uses can you think of for a piece of stone?" There was a trace of humor in Scar's tone.

"Quite a few, depending on what I'm working on." Roy lolled back into his seat. "Including driving a fifteen-year-old boy crazy."

"Or teaching him several lessons at once."

"Patience being one of them," Roy responded. "I'd like to hear more about your teacher and your family. As long as we're stuck together in this train car, we may as well get to know each other."

"Very well." Scar folded his thick-muscled arms with an audible rustling of fabric. "Did you plan to be a war alchemist, when you were a boy?"

Roy hesitated for a long moment. "No." He paused, then went on. "I had dreams of being a hero, and I thought the military would give me plenty of opportunities to use my skills to improve peoples' lives."

"Why did you continue, then, when you learned of the rot of the Amestrian military?"

Roy lowered his head. "It...wasn't until we were well into the Ishbal Rebell - the attack on Ishbal - that I recognized the truth. And after that...eventually, anyway...I decided I wanted to try to get rid of the rot."

"You sought power for yourself." There was a flicker of challenge underneath the words.

"That was the only way to change things, and make the changes permanent."

Scar's voice was soft. "Do you truly believe you can build anything that will stand forever?"

Roy growled a little. "Do you really think killing the alchemists one by one would have made any lasting difference?"

"I sought to buy my people time, nothing more."

"Time for what?"

Scar's voice dropped half an octave. "To find their way to the _Tani Yumtepi_, and prepare for the battles ahead."

"So your solution was just to keep the killing going. Mine was to try to end it. And...what was that word you used? It sounded familiar, but I don't know it."

"_Tani Yumtepi_. The places the prophets take our people when _varisti_ plague us."

"So...you're talking about real places? Not a paradise in the afterlife?" One side of Roy's mouth quirked up. "And I suppose I'm one of the fa-feristi. Was that the word?"

"_Varisti_. It means one who is blind and deaf to God."

"I'll try not to take that as an insult," Roy muttered.

"It's fact, not an insult. God speaks to every soul. You hear, but you do not _listen_. Therefore you are _varisti_—willfully ignorant."

Roy pursed his lips. "Does that mean your people have written off everyone who doesn't believe in your god?"

Scar's tone sounded just a bit irked. "Why do you think so many of us learned your language, alchemist?"

"I've...always assumed that was because you were...forced," Roy answered reluctantly.

"We are commanded by God to teach those who ask. Even you, with your hands covered in the blood of my people, would be taught the way of God if you asked with sincere contrition." Scar sighed irritably. "Some of us learned your language because we had to-but the priests and Elders are charged to speak to _varisti_ in their own tongues, the better to show them the true path."

"But that makes me ask again: if the conflicts had never happened, would you have had nothing to say to someone like me? If I only asked about you and your people, and not this...path...you talk about?

A hint of exasperation crept into Scar's tone. "Had your people never made war on mine, you would be welcome as traders, and we would speak to you in your tongue, and ask that you respect our ways while you are guests in our country."

"You'd have no interest in the culture and customs of other people, except to try and evangelize them?" Roy's eyebrows climbed in disbelief. "Are you really that insular?"

"Are you that unfamiliar with the concept of _traders?_" Scar shot back gruffly. "Those who go to other nations carry back wisdom as well as silk and jade." His voice fell into a chanting rhythm as he went on. "My people have long been visitors to Xing, and their old men have sat with ours and spoken of the flow of water while our old women sat with theirs to speak of the wisdom of the loom and the garden."

Roy fell silent, and for a moment he strained to _see_ his companion's dark face. "I...see. So I suppose we forfeited our own chance for that sort of interaction."

There was a long pause, then Scar replied with a hint of resentment. "No. Time and lives have been wasted, but while we live as God's people, we must obey God's will."

"I can understand why you're so grudging about it." Roy turned toward the window and spread his hand against it. "I suppose it's up to us to try to make you want to talk to us."

Scar growled low in his throat. "You assume a power you do not hold, alchemist."

Roy shook his head, still talking to the window. "I don't mean by forcing you. I mean...maybe I mean by trying to make ourselves the type of people you'd want to trade with. Maybe I'm...asking what it will take."

There was a long moment of silence, then the Ishbalan asked, "What is it you expect, Roy Mustang?"

Roy shrugged. "I don't really know. But don't you think you and I are in a unique position here?"

"We are men of war attempting to sheathe our swords while still on the battlefield."

"That's one way to describe it." Roy turned back toward his companion. "I suppose the big question is how genuinely each side wants to sheathe those swords."

"My people never wished for anything but to live in our lands and according to God's will. We are not conquerors."

"Believe me, I know that. All the conquering came on our side, and I regret that more than you're ever likely to believe. But I'm trying to understand how to make peace now."

Scar paused again. "The Elders will test your sincerity. They will ask for things you will find difficult to give."

"I suppose it's too much to ask, after everything that's happened, for any of you to make a gesture that will help us - me - do this."

Scar sounded warily puzzled. "What is there _we_ could do to aid _you_?"

Roy smiled a little self-deprecatingly. "Well, the usual response to that sort of question is 'Meet me halfway.' But I don't think that's anything we can really hope for."

Scar sighed softly. "If you survive to meet the Elders, it's likely they will at least listen to what you say." He paused for a few clicks of the wheels on the tracks. "If the choice were mine, I'd ask you to prove that you speak for those in power in your country—and that they sincerely want to make amends—by sending your soldiers home."

"Making sure I'm not just a distraction or a lunatic." Roy leaned forward and put his hands flat to the table. "I think I can talk the Major General and General Grumman into that."

"Olivia Armstrong is a hard woman," Scar said, "but she applies the same discipline to her own mind that she demands of those who serve her. You might tell her the soldiers in Ishbal might be put to better use elsewhere."

"The only question is _where_ to put them to use." Roy lowered his head, his sightless eyes tracking something between his hands.

The rail line ended at the village of Wild Creek, which was in fact little more than a logging camp. There were only two passengers remaining in the single passenger car when the train pulled in well after dark.

"The car is this way, sir." The voice was reedy with age and accented with the rounded vowels of the northeastern territories.

"Lead on." Roy Mustang shouldered his knapsack and lifted his suitcase.

A gnarled hand touched Roy's fingers. "Let me take that for you, sir."

Roy hesitated. "The radio set is lighter."

"And more fragile, I'm sure," the man replied. "I'm a clumsy old farmhand—I don't mind a heavy load, but my hands shake like leaves holding a baby or a fine wineglass."

"I trip over carpets and walk into walls regularly," Roy answered ruefully as he surrendered the suitcase. "These days I do it even when I'm not drunk."

"I tidied up the barn and cleared the house special. Picked out the best sensible horses for you. You'll ride safe tomorrow morning."

"Good. Scar, will you give me the radio and your elbow?"

The Ishbalan wordlessly shoved the hefty box containing the radio into Roy's calf, then nudged Roy's bicep with his left elbow. Roy bent to pick up the radio in his left hand, and took Scar's arm with his right.

Scar held his elbow stiffly away from his body as he followed their host toward the car parked at the far end of the train platform.

"You're going to get a cramp if you keep this up," Roy murmured. "I know it's strange, but please relax a little. How far are we from the steps?"

The thick muscle of Scar's arm relaxed a fraction. "A dozen times my height. Maybe a little more."

"Seventy-five to eighty feet. All right." Roy lifted his head and cast about. "I don't hear too many people."

"I count seven, three of them small children." Scar kept his voice pitched for Roy's ears only. "No one has given us more than a moment's attention."

"I've always marveled at how easy it is to go unnoticed if you act like you belong wherever you are." Roy's lips twisted into a hint of a sardonic smile.

"Or if you are someone others would rather not see," Scar answered. "Here are the steps."

"So an Ishbalan with a large and distinctive scar on his face and a blind Amestrian get off a train and drive off into the countryside, and no one's the wiser." Roy chuckled and carefully felt his way down the steps to the car. "It makes me wonder what I've missed in the past."

"Me." Scar answered. "More than once."

Roy started to ask, then thought better of it.

_**Three**_

"Is this really necessary?" Roy, dressed in a light Ishbalan tunic and trousers, worked his fingers over the nest of loose leather loops and straps that was supposed to be an Ishbalan-style riding sandal.

"Amestrian clothing traps sand, holds the heat in during the day, and lets it out during the night," Scar answered.

"If you say so." Roy set the sandal aside. "But I think my feet will be safer in good thick shoes."

"We'll be riding for at least ten days. Perhaps longer. Your shoes will be full of sand within two." Scar paused, then said quietly, "Fitting sandals can be difficult even with eyes to see."

"I suppose so," Roy answered stiffly as he bent to take his shoe from beside the nightstand.

Scar took a step and caught Roy's hand before it touched the shoe. "I'll thread the straps to fit you."

Roy hesitated for a long moment, then gritted his teeth. "All right. Thank you." He sat down on the bed.

Scar picked up the offending sandal. "Pick up your right foot."

Roy obeyed. "Will we have to do this every time I put my shoes on?"

"No. Once they're threaded to fit your feet, you can leave them as they are and simply tie and untie them." Scar put the sole of the sandal to the sole of Roy's foot. "Hold this."

Roy took hold of the thick leather uppers around his ankle and flexed his toes as Scar's hands worked the leather through the numerous loops and eyelets.

"Here." Scar put the ends of the lace into Roy's fingers. "Tie them how you like."

"I'll do the other one," Roy said as he looped the laces around his ankle and tied them in a tidy knot.

Scar waited without comment for the half-hour it took Roy to work out the loops of the sandal.

They rode on a soft forest trail, the horses' hooves turning up the scent of deep black soil and green leaves. Scar rode a rangy gelding who chewed his bit, and led Roy on a mare named Ghost because, as the old farmhand had said, "she's soft-footed and grey as a meadow spirit." A second lead rope tied to Roy's saddle led a phlegmatic pack pony. Roy's attempts to strike up a conversation got him only noncommittal grunts and some muttered Ishbalan phrases. Eventually he gave up and let Ghost's motion lull him into a near-doze.

"This is good enough." Scar stopped his horse, and his saddle creaked as he dismounted.

"We're stopping for the night?" Roy flexed his stiff fingers.

"Yes."

Roy gingerly got off his horse, and let himself grimace as his feet hit the ground. "Well, I'm going to be sore tomorrow. How about you?"

"...The _anar dkan_ will be harder in the morning." Scar took Roy's elbow and steered him away from his horse. "Sit here under the tree while I see to the horses."

"Give me the packs and I'll get dinner started," Roy answered amiably.

"I'll see to that after I've finished with the horses."

Roy frowned. "I'm not helpless, Scar."

"You're blind."

"Believe me, I've noticed that," Roy answered with asperity. "But I can peel carrots and cut up potatoes without hurting myself." He arched a brow in the Ishbalan's direction. "I'm also pretty good at getting a fire started."

There were some rattles and softer rustles, then Scar put a sizable fry pan into Roy's hands. "The paring knife is in the largest potato. I'll gather firewood after I'm done with the horses."

Roy nodded, and settled to his knees in the damp leaf litter to start preparing their dinner.

They broke camp early the next morning and rode east along the trail until it ended at a set of packed-earth ruts.

"Put up your hood."

"Why? It's not that cold." Roy frowned and shifted in his saddle. "Or do I need to hide my race?"

"Neither. We've been riding under the trees, but now that we're in the open the sun will bake you, and sun sickness is nothing to trifle with." Scar paused, then nudged his horse to the left. When he spoke again there was a tinge of curiosity in his tone. "If we were riding from the east you could pass for an Easterner, so long as you didn't speak."

"I can pass for Xingese to almost everybody except the Xingese," Roy answered, settling the hood of his Ishbalan-style cloak over his head. "I'm fluent in one of the northern dialects."

"Were you born in the east, then?"

"Only if by 'east' you mean the Eastern District of Amestris." Roy shrugged. "What part of Ishbal did you come from?"

There was a moment's silence, then Scar answered, "Kanda."

"Is that where we're going?"

"No. There's very little left to go to."

Roy paused. "I suppose not. Where are you taking me, then? To the—what was the word you used the other day? You were trying to buy time for people to get there."

"_Tani Yumtepi_. That's not where we're going, either."

"Is this another guessing game?"

"We're going to Xerxes."

"Xerxes? I thought we were going to Ishbal."

"You wouldn't live more than a day, if we went into Ishbal. Their Elders would give me the choice of killing you myself, or watching another slit your throat as the sword came down to behead me."

"That's..." Roy fell silent and lowered his head.

"Those who live in Xerxes haven't been facing the soldiers daily. They're more likely to accept the stone you carry, and spare your life." Scar paused for a few of his horse's strides. "If there is any chance for a future between our peoples, it lies with the Elders of Xerxes."

"I thought Xerxes was just a ruin with a few bandits preying on the eastern caravans."

Scar whuffed in his chest. "There was a time when that was true."

"What's true about it now?"

"Now there are Elders living amid the ruins."

"Mmf." Roy set his dinner pan aside and stretched his back. "Scar, which way is Central?"

The big Ishbalan grunted a bit, then reached and gave the radio box under Roy's left elbow a push, turning it. "If you followed the line of the right edge of the box you would walk straight to Central City."

"Ah. Thank you." Roy pulled his watch from the belt pouch on his right hip, and used the key on the other end of the watch chain to open the radio box.

"Do you want help?"

"I won't say no if you offer to handle the aerial," Roy answered. He laid out the headset and microphone, then found the heavy steel crank handle and fitted it into place.

Scar allowed Roy to demonstrate fitting the radio mast together, then stringing the antenna to it. He worked in soft rustles of fabric and whiffs of horse and dust. "This radio is smaller than the ones I saw during the invasion."

"It's a newer model," Roy answered amiably as he turned the crank. "I haven't looked into how they did it, but the engineers of the Communications Division have been making field radio and phone sets smaller and lighter every year. This one is only one box with a fifteen-foot aerial, but it can put out a signal that will reach from Xerxes to Central at night, and I could keep talking all night on one winding, if I had that much to talk about."

"What do you plan to talk about tonight?" The antenna clips clicked softly.

"Not much." Roy shrugged as he cranked. "To be honest, this is a 'don't panic' call. My people tracked us until we crossed the border, but now that we're outside Amestris we can't be so easily watched."

"I saw them." A dangerous tone crept into Scar's voice. "You ordered them to watch me?"

"No." Roy's eyebrows lifted. "I just know my people. They probably had a car and hotel room booked in every town we passed through, in the hopes that I'd change my mind."

"Mm." Scar lifted the aerial and set it into its socket. "I'll see to the dishes while you tell them I haven't killed you."

"Thanks." Roy grinned a bit. "For the dishes and not killing me."

"You've spared my life." Scar picked up Roy's dinner pan. "Had someone said to me last year that I would travel with the Flame Alchemist, not as a prisoner but as a guide, and that I would choose to defend your life rather than end it..."

"I would have laughed in that guy's face, too." Roy paused and shook out his hand and arm before resuming his cranking. "War makes for strange bedfellows. Trying to end a war makes for even stranger ones." He stopped at a loud click from within the radio, and disconnected the crank handle. After some probing of the touchscript labels glued around and on the switches and dials, he put on the headset and set his fingers on the telegraphy key. His first few attempts netted him nothing, but on the fifth try, a lengthy, rapid series of clicks and beeps rattled in his ears. Kain Fury's mastery of telegraph code made him hard to keep up with, but Roy eventually verified his identity, and Fury shifted to voice transmission.

"This is De Salars Worldwide, how can I be of service?" The code phrases translated to _Are you all right?_ and _I have news for you._

"I'm one of your customers from New Optain, and I've heard of some potential opportunities I'd like to look into." _I'm fine, what's going on?_

The rest of their conversation was couched as a discussion of investments in everything from wheat crops in southern Amestris and sapphire mines in Bharat to the shipping lines of Caledonia and the fisheries of Mundo. Scar moved around throughout, scouring the dishes clean with handfuls of sand, checking on the hobbled horses and drawing more water from the desert well for them, and feeding the tiny campfire. When Roy took off the headset, Scar asked, "What did your people say?"

"So far, things are under control, but there are some people and situations they're monitoring."

"Such as?" Scar approached, and lifted the antenna mast free of its mount.

"Such as Drachmani spies suddenly converging on Central." Roy frowned. "Their agents generally aren't anywhere near as good as ours, but they're acting like they've got a large scale plan and timetable this time."

"No doubt there are others who can find out what that plan is."

"There are. I just wish..." Roy sighed. "I don't like not being there to handle it personally."

"You made your choice, Roy. Now you must follow it through and allow others to deal with the Drachmans."

"I know, I know, I can't run everything." Roy put the microphone into its padded nest, then paused and turned toward Scar. "You called me Roy."

"It's your name."

"Yes, but you haven't been using it. You've called me 'alchemist' or used my full name."

"Are you offended?"

"No. Pleasantly surprised. Or am I reading too much into it?"

"You call your friends by their personal names only, and use the tribe name to strangers." Scar pried the last few antenna wire clips open with loud metallic _pings._ "My people use the personal name for everyone who lives among us. To you it may seem too familiar."

"Believe me, I'll consider it a victory if they use any part of my name rather than calling me a demon or something." Roy coiled the antenna wire. "But what should I call you?"

"Hm?"

"You must have a name, or something I could call you that's not just a reference to a mark on your face."

Scar laid the sections of the mast beside Roy's knee. "Call me what you like."

"Is it offensive to ask for your name?"

"No. I just don't have one to give you."

Roy turned toward his guide. "What are you talking about? I'm sure your mother didn't look at you the day you were born and say, 'I'm going to name him _Scar_.' If it's none of my business say so, but I'd like to have something more appropriate than a military intelligence tag to call you."

Scar didn't answer immediately. When he did speak his words rippled low, like a stream flowing in rills and eddies of pain and grief. "The child my mother held died with all the rest of his family at the hands of a State Alchemist. I'm going to take a traveler's bath. Keep watch." He moved away from the fire and their bedrolls and refused any further conversation.

The horses' hooves crunched a little in the sand of the desert. Roy swayed lazily in his saddle. "Scar?"

"Mm." The grunt was of someone distracted by something else.

"Have you been to Xerxes before?"

Scar's answer came back snappish. "Why do you insist on questioning me every step of the way?"

Roy straightened up and frowned. "I'm not questioning you. I'm trying to make conversation. It's not like I can read a book or admire the scenery."

There was a long pause, then Scar said, "I've never been to Xerxes myself, but I know the way there."

"I didn't mean to imply that you don't," Roy replied placatingly. "Frankly, I'm bored and I'd be willing to talk about just about anything to pass the time."

"Talking overmuch makes a man thirsty," Scar said gruffly. "But we aren't far from a well." He paused. "Perhaps you will answer a personal question." The intonation rose and fell strangely, making the words neither a statement nor a question.

Roy lifted an eyebrow. "Perhaps I will, once I know what the question is."

"There were many stories about you, when I walked the roads in your country. Some of them were clearly false. Others seem plausible."

"That was intentional." Roy grinned at the memory. "We had a lot of fun, concocting those stories. Which ones are you wondering about?"

Scar hesitated. "Many people believe that you have children. That you keep seven wives and all of the children you fathered on them in some hidden place."

Roy's eyebrows rose. "I'd forgotten about that one. That was one of Falman's—he was really good at the conspiracy rumors. We set it up to see who would start following pregnant young women who happened to congregate in out of the way places."

"Do you have children?"

"No." Roy paused. "Do you?"

"No." Scar let his horse take a few strides before he went on. "So long as I am exiled, I cannot marry."

"I see." Roy turned toward his guide again. "Is there any way to get your exile revoked?"

"It could be done," Scar answered. He changed the subject. "I once saw several drawings and paintings in a market stall. The dealer claimed that they were of you—several years younger...and without your uniform."

"Or anything else." Roy's cheeks heated a little. "I knew I'd missed a few of those."

"So those drawings were truly of you?"

"I can't say for sure whether what you saw was actually me, but I did work as an artist's model during my apprenticeship."

Silence, then, "Why?"

"Money," Roy answered with a shrug. "My parents' savings paid most of the first year, and my foster mother helped as much as she could, but—well, I decided I'd find a way to pay my apprenticeship fees myself."

"But why—_posing?_" Scar sounded a little revolted.

Roy's face darkened a little. "I was sixteen and didn't have too many marketable skills—all the bars in town already had all the bartenders they needed. I was either working for my master or studying with him from a little after dawn until suppertime." His attention turned inward. "He didn't really want an apprentice, so he tripled the fee to try and get rid of me. The artist couple in town always needed models—there aren't too many people willing to be naked in front of strangers, much less naked and holding a pose for a few hours. They liked my 'exotic' face and skin tone...and the fact that I'd let them dress and pose me in ways most models wouldn't tolerate." Roy whuffed to himself. "At the time, I figured that if they'd pay me more for it, I could stand a backache or a few weeks letting a coat of Bharati skin paint wear off."

"But now those pictures are sold in the streets."

"And only those who know me well—or know a few things about me that pancake makeup couldn't hide—can be sure that those sketches and paintings are really me, and not just some kid who sort of resembles me, or leftover propaganda arranged to bring me down by a military rival." Roy grinned. "The face really isn't what most people look at in those pictures anyway." He went on before Scar could reply. "Maybe I can ask you a personal question?"

There was a moment's pause, then, "Ask."

"How does an Ishbalan—what was that word you used?-a warrior-priest end up studying alchemy?"

The silence was longer this time. Scar finally answered, "The word you asked for is _'yevarshedaht'_. It means 'a priest with a sword.' Your other question...it's likely you'll hear many versions of the story from the people of the tribes." He took a breath, let it out slowly. "I had an older brother, once. He chose the path of the _jhastovar_, the...scholar and keeper of records."

Roy settled his hands on the pommel of his saddle and kept his face attentive and his mouth shut.

"I chose the path of the _yevarshedaht_. My brother believed he could defend our people by learning the ancient powers our ancestors used to defend themselves." Scar paused, then said quietly, "It would further disgrace the memory of my family among the tribes, if they knew the full extent of what he did."

"There are a lot of secrets that will die with me," Roy answered, matching the Ishbalan's pitch.

"Mm." Scar rode a few more strides, then went on. "My brother studied the Xingese art of alkahestry, as well as Amestrian war alchemy, and he combined them with the alchemy of our people. He designed two arrays, then had them tattooed on his arms." He faltered a little. "We were taking our family to the _Tani Yumtepi_ when Zolf J. Kimbley came."

"_Kimbley_," Roy sucked in a breath. "Oh gods, no wonder."

"He was only one of the monsters unleashed on us," Scar said gruffly. "Kimbley caused a house to explode. That was the last I knew. When I woke, my face was bandaged and...my right arm had been replaced by my brother's."

_"What?"_

"I found his body later, as well as the remains of the right hand I was born with. I would have bled to death. My brother...preferred to let me live. So he used the power he held to give me his right arm...and the destruction within it." He fell silent.

Roy didn't prod him for anything more.

Roy woke to a rough, horse-scented hand covering his mouth and Scar's voice hissing in his ear. "We have to move. Now. Put on your sandals and cloak, the rest can wait. Don't say a word until I tell you it's safe. Pack the camp while I catch the horses."

Roy nodded, then sat up and hurriedly tied his sandals. He stuffed their canteens of precious water into the first bag that his questing fingers touched, then wrapped up the clinking forks and dinner pans in his bedroll and buckled it into an awkward bundle. Scar returned with their horses, saddled them without giving them so much as a mouthful of water, all but threw Roy up into the saddle, then mounted and kicked his horse into a ground-eating canter, with Roy's mare and the pack horse pounding along behind to keep up. Roy grabbed Ghost's mane and clung for dear life.

Not until his horse began to falter and stumble did Scar allow the animals to drop back to a walk. He said nothing until the horses' hard breathing subsided, then sidled his horse up beside Roy's mare until his knee brushed Roy's. "Keep your head down. We are being watched." His left hand closed on the back of Roy's neck. "Stay quiet a little longer." He left his hand on Roy for several strides, then let out a held breath. "They've withdrawn. We'll stop at the next well for the horses' sake, but we need to get past the Pillars by sunset. Ask your questions now—and tell me where you put the water."

"I'm not sure which bag I put the canteens in—it's one of the pack horse's bags. Who were they?"

"Men of the Zabir tribe. They've claimed this land since the last time I came this far north."

"You mean you talked to them?"

"No. I saw the _yevarshedaht's_ sash. It was the Zabir pattern."

Roy looked baffled. "I think I'm missing some things here. How do you get from seeing someone's sash to running like hell across the desert?"

Scar paused for a moment. "Zabir is one of the tribes that once lived on the plains of Daliha."

Roy sucked in a short breath. "_Oh_." He dropped his head almost to his chest. "And now they know I'm here."

"They know who I am, and they saw me command a blind man with black hair who obeyed me without question. When I put my hand on your neck, it was a message that you ride under my hand—my protection."

"So you were trying to convince them that I'm not the man who butchered their families." Roy nodded. "They'll wonder why we ran, though. If we were innocent we could have stayed."

"If God is with us they'll think you're either an innocent traveler or my servant, and we ran because I fear being caught and tried by their Elders." Scar kneed his horse into a faster walk. "That would make more sense to them than my putting myself between a State Alchemist and the rifle of a _yevarshedaht_."

The sun sank, and a light breeze swept the cool scent of a desert evening through Roy Mustang's hair. Ghost plodded, barely picking up her feet, and Scar's horse had all but stopped chewing his bit.

"How much further are we going tonight?"

"To the next well," Scar answered in a strangely flattened tone that didn't disrupt the peace of the night. "Another two or three miles."

"You said you've never been this way before. How do you know where the wells are?"

"There are signs."

"You mean arrows drawn on rocks or something?"

"Nothing so obvious. I know what to look for." Scar's tone indicated he'd said all he had to say on the subject.

The horses' hooves clopped on stone, and the sound rang off of stone walls. Roy straightened in his saddle. "Scar? Is this Xerxes?"

"Yes. These are the ruins of ancient Xerxes."

"Xerxes." Roy turned this way and that. "I wish I could...will you tell me what it's like?"

Scar gathered his thoughts a moment, then answered, "It must have been beautiful, before the city died." He hesitated, then went on in something that would have been named a _sheepish_ air coming from a less formidable voice. "Some of the houses are still standing—I see one that's three stories high and has part of its roof. There were gardens in the walls, once-there are weeds and some flowers growing in them even now." He stopped his horse. "My people called it "Golden Xerxes", because in the light of dawn the stones of the city seemed to be made of gleaming gold."

An almost-dreamy smile settled on Roy's face as he listened. "That sounds beautiful. I'd give almost anything to see it." His face shifted to a more pensive expression. "I used to think that if I hadn't become an alchemist I might have been an archeologist or a historian."

Scar let a moment pass before he answered. "There is much to learn here. The people of Golden Xerxes loved beautiful things. In some sheltered places the paint on their walls survives. This street must have been named the Street of Lions-there are lions carved into the garden walls and onto the lantern-posts." He nudged his horse back into motion.

"Are there still lions in this area?"

"Perhaps. There is water here, and where the water is, the game will be-and the lions will hunt."

Roy smiled. "I don't know about you, but the thought that they could be out there, watching us, feels right. There _should_ be lions in a place like this."

Scar hesitated, then answered, "It is...right, to see wild things doing as wild things are meant to do." Some of the gravel in his voice softened as he said, "I once tracked a herd of wild horses, meaning to capture one for myself. I followed them for five days-then missed my throw, and they ran. I walked the rest of the way without regret for their freedom."

Roy nodded. "My friend Maes and I went camping in the mountains when we were on leave one spring. We saw a mother bear with two cubs across a creek. She reared up and glared at us. We both had ways of defending ourselves if she had decided to attack, but we got out of there pretty quickly. She gave us a bad scare, but I've never held it against her. She was keeping her cubs safe." He smiled at the memory. "I think it was after that weekend that Maes proposed to Gracia, actually."

"Was he your friend from childhood?"

"Maes? No, but he might as well have been. We were roommates at the Academy."

Scar rode in silence for a long moment. "Would he also have come here to see the ancient beauty and ask about lions?"

Roy chuckled. "He'd have been all over this place. And he wouldn't come just to see it himself. He'd take so many pictures nobody would ever forget what it looked like."

Scar answered with just a tinge of humor. "He would have to pass his camera to his children, and they to their children. This city is larger than your Central City."

Roy smiled in fond reminiscence. "He'd have tried. I think he must have had about five hundred pictures of his little girl by the time he...died." His smile faltered and faded.

The horses' hooves and the soft whisper of the wind through the scoured ruins were the only sound for several seconds before Scar asked, "Was it his death that you meant to avenge in destroying the demon Envy?"

Roy sucked in a sharp breath, then swallowed. "Yes. He was the one I..." His hands clenched into fists atop the pommel of his saddle.

Scar let a moment pass before he answered. "My brother's killer is also dead, but...my grief remains." He kneed his horse into a faster walk. "Pray that our peoples learn to look past their pain more quickly than we did."

"Yes." Roy took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. "We've got to make sure they aren't as...as blind as we were." He hesitated. "And I'm sorry about your brother. I'm...I'm glad at least that it wasn't me."

Scar sighed a little and went on with the ache clear in his voice. "My brother told me that we must be the ones to break the chain of hatred." He paused to persuade his horse to climb up a set of low, wide steps. "He was a stronger man than I. He believed until Kimbley came that our people could be reconciled." His words went soft. "He gave his life to save mine, and there are times when I wish he hadn't."

Roy's eyes widened, and he took a moment to form a reply. "For what it's worth...you're a strong man, to have pulled back from the brink. And I...I'm grateful to you for pulling me back too. Whatever you actually intended, I think you saved my life and my sanity."

A bit of Scar's usual gruffness returned. "I saw you turning toward the same path I walked." He paused. "In that moment, alchemist, you heard two voices. The one you heeded spoke God's words."

"You certainly threw a thunderbolt at me, whoever gave it to you."

"As I spoke, I heard my brother's voice, not mine." He sighed. "It took me far too long to hear his voice in my soul and listen to his wisdom."

"But you did, and I'm just one of millions of people who are alive today because you did. So—thank you."

Scar made a soft sound of surprise, then answered, "You are welcome, Roy Mustang." After a beat he continued, "You honor me with your trust."

Roy smiled with just a tinge of irony. "Trust is the first step."

They rode through the ruins in companionable silence, getting off here and there to lead the horses through narrow passages between the walls that still stood. Scar commented on the occasional interesting feature; a long-dry fountain full of fanciful animals, some graffiti scratched on a sheltered wall in characters only scholars would recognize, the remains of a wide, gracefully curved staircase reaching up to nothing but air...

Scar stopped his horse. "Ready your arguments. They've just revealed themselves."

"All right." Roy straightened in his saddle. "Are they coming out to talk?"

"You're still breathing."

"I suppose that's a good start. How many of them?"

"Maybe fifteen-" Scar stopped. "And there is an Elder with them. He carries a shotgun at his back. He speaks for one the northern tribes. Get down—do you want me to offer the greeting?"

"I'll do it." Roy swung down from Ghost's back, then offered his hands, palms up, toward the sound of approaching steps. _"Kektan duarte eskuak warajtoj nayiz, Admi."_

Tough, broad hands closed around Roy's for a moment. _"Kekat juajin nuen, dutzu."_ He let go and went on in a scoured baritone.

"His name is Nikai," Scar translated, "and he speaks for the tribe of Ganeha. He asks for our names and our business here."

"Does he really not know who you are?"

"I am who you name me to be. Don't assume he doesn't understand your language. What is your answer to his question?"

Roy's brows furrowed. "My name is Roy Mustang, and I've come to return something to the Ishbalan people, as well as to ask for peace terms."

There was a murmur even before Scar finished translating, and some restless shifting of feet as the Elder spoke again.

"The Elder says there was a war alchemist with that name. One who killed with fire."

Roy lifted his chin. "I am that man."

The sounds that followed that statement needed no translation. Roy's spine stiffened as the _hiss-zing_ of swords leaving their sheaths meshed with the _click-clack_ of shells locking into rifle barrels.

"_Baju_." the Elder's voice said softly. There was a reluctant shuffling of sandals on stone.

"The Elder is coming closer—he may touch. Don't resist." Scar's tone was heavy with warning, and perhaps—it may have been fear.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Roy answered through gritted teeth. Something brushed his forehead and he startled, then schooled his face to impassivity as a dry, somewhat gnarled hand pushed his bangs aside, then took hold of his chin and turned it this way and that. The Elder spoke into the choking silence, and let go of Roy.

"The Elder asks when you lost your eyes." Scar's tension all but vibrated in his words. "_Sazamuz_, alchemist."

Roy frowned. "On the day of the eclipse. Around three months ago."

There were some comments in response to the translation, then another question from the Elder. "Why did your people choose you to come to us?" Scar translated.

"Tell him there's more than one valid answer to that question," Roy answered. "Perhaps we could sit down someplace and talk about it over a cup of tea."

Scar hissed softly. "Are you out of your mind?"

"No. It's been established that we could kill each other—they have swords and guns and you and I have dangerous alchemy. But no one's seen fit to draw blood yet. Let's just say the sabers are rattled enough. Tell him."

Scar reluctantly translated, and silence fell again. Then the Elder said something that brought some argument from younger voices.

"Scar—what are they saying?"

"The Elder says your words should be heard in the temple courtyard before the tribes make any decisions." Scar's voice all but vibrated under the tension. "The younger men argue that you should be put in chains and on trial for your life."

Roy's face tightened. "I thought the Elders held command authority here."

"It's not as simple as your military rankings. The Elders lead because they are the wisest and they hear God most clearly." Scar took a short breath as the argument ended under a clipped phrase from the Elder. That roughened voice spoke at some length, then Scar said something in reply. The Elder gave a curt response, and Scar shifted into Amestrian with a noticeable Ishbalan accent coloring his pronunciation. "Elder Nikai puts a choice into your hands. If you choose to remain among the ruins, you and I will be bound only by your good word, and Nikai will carry your words to the other Elders. If you want to talk to the other Elders, your hands will be tied and I will be bound and blindfolded."

"I can understand why they don't trust me around their leaders, but why hobble you?"

"A man who's broken an oath before God will easily break one given to men. What should I tell them?"

"I don't like this, and I hope you'll forgive me, Scar, but..." Roy held out his wrists, crossed one over the other. "I'd rather talk to your people directly."

_**Four**_

Roy tripped again, falling against the Ishbalan on his left this time. The man grunted and shouldered Roy back up. Again. Someone behind him made a comment, and the Elder answered. Roy rolled his shoulders a little and flexed his elbows as much as he could with his hands tied behind his back.

They were moving into the inhabited part of the ruined city—voices and the rustles of clothing announced the presence of women and even a few children. The chatter rose fast, then took on an ugly, dangerous tone. People closed in, and the men leading Roy spoke sharply. The crowd pulled back a few feet, then something slammed into Roy's ribs and he gasped. Shouts became a roar, then swords sang from sheaths and strong hands shoved the Amestrian back into someone's chest. Scar grunted as Roy staggered into his midsection, then the exile raised his voice and yelled a phrase that caused a growl from the surrounding crowd.

A break-action shotgun snapped shut and Nikai roared _"Tetar Z'oht!"_ The male voices around Roy answered with a phrase from his nightmares. _"Sartu Zhevath!"_ Only as the silence fell did he realize that Scar's voice had been among those repeating the Ishbalan battle cry.

Elder Nikai's voice rose, and went on at some length. There were some murmurs and growls, then a voice thick with fury calling out an argument.

A reedy female voice interrupted, and the angry one snapped a reply. There was a sharp rap on the uneven stone street, then the reedy voice delivered a comment heavy with scorn and some people laughed.

"What's happening, Scar?" Roy sidled around until he found Scar's fingers, then manuevered the rope around his wrists into the reach of that deadly right hand.

"There are some here who lost families and homes to your flames," the vigilante answered. He touched the rope with just two fingertips.

"So I'm on trial?"

"No. The Elders are reciting from the _Kneetavaga_, which commands the tribes to show mercy to the penitent."

"How likely is it that I'll get out of this alive?"

"The _yevarshedaht_ stand around us. The Elders have said they will hear your words, and ordered you brought safely to the temple. For now we are protected." Scar relaxed his hand, dropping away from contact with Roy's bound hands.

"How likely are the_ ivchadot_ to obey those orders?"

"As likely as an Amestrian war alchemist is to obey his." Scar took a deep, slow breath, then let it out. "This may fall to your advantage. Be calm and think."

"Be calm. Right. It's not like this is the first time this year I've been surrounded by people who want to tear me limb from limb."

There was a rustling, then a strong hand took hold of Roy's elbow. "There will be no more stones thrown today, Roy Mustang," Elder Nikai said in accented Amestrian. "Walk with me."

Roy startled, then followed where he was led.

The Elder led Roy on an uphill path over uneven stone streets. The Ishbalans massed around them, and Roy could smell bodies as well as cooking and baking scents and the odors of animals. Voices murmured and a few dogs barked. They approached a fountain whose cheerful burbling contrasted with the low grumbling of the people around them. Nikai stopped, and matter-of-factly pulled apart the knot in the rope around Roy's wrists. There was a hiss from the crowd, then Nikai raised his voice for a sharp comment. The reedy female voice added something else, and the tension eased a fraction. Nikai switched into Amestrian and said, "Here we remove the sandals and wash." He took Roy's wrist and guided his hand to the cool stone of the lip of the fountain's highest bowl.

Roy hesitated, then slowly crouched to untie his sandals. There was restless stirring around him, then a grunt and a scuffing of sandals.

"Scar? Are you here?"

"Yes." The vigilante sounded strained.

"Are you all right?"

"For now. Be _careful_, Colonel." Scar's voice came from somewhere to Roy's right.

"I'm trying," Roy answered. "What am I expected to do here?"

"Take off your sandals, then wash your feet, your hands, and your face. Leave your sandals—no one wears shoes past the outer gate." Scar subsided as the female Elder's voice spoke in a chiding tone.

Roy composed his face and took his time rinsing his feet in the lowest bowl of the fountain, then washing his arms to the elbows in the middle bowl before splashing water from the highest bowl on his face and into his hair. A cane tapped lightly behind him, and someone else splashed water from the fountain before the voice of the female Elder said, "I am Rehena. I speak for Naor. Perhaps you will walk with me." Damp, worn fingers touched Roy's forearm.

"I'm honored, ma'am. But—I'd like my friend to come with me."

"The exile will walk behind you," the Elder said calmly. "Come. There are matters of nations to discuss." She took Roy's hand in a strong, cool grip, then put his hand on her shoulder and led him at a stately pace across a wide plaza paved in stone polished to glassy smoothness, then up a short flight of wide steps and into a building that echoed cavernously with the sound of running water. Rehena paused and said, "Here is the river. The water washes away all that is false. This place is holy. Do you understand this?"

"I'm not sure, _Vrua_. Do you mean that I should stay here? I don't want to offend your people."

"I say that if you step into the river, you will say what is true. We are not so easy to insult as you think." She patted Roy's hand. "There is no bloodshed in the_ toz_. If you will keep to this, we will hear your words here."

"That's a restriction I can live with," Roy answered. He stepped into the flowing water and let it rush over the tops of his feet for a moment. More people were coming into the temple from behind him, moving without speaking. He smelled stone and water and bodies, and heard rustles of movement. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly before opening his eyes again.

"There will be a place for you to sit," Elder Rehena said, taking Roy's hand again. "Come." She led Roy to a woven mat placed in the middle of the floor. "Sit here, son of a foreign woman. We will all sit and hear your words."

"Thank you, Elder." Roy sank to the mat and waited.

Someone stumbled and fell hard to his knees beside Roy.

"Scar?" Roy reached and found a forehead ridged with thick scarring, and the edge of a blindfold.

"Yes." Scar coughed a bit, then shifted his weight and straightened up.

"Why are you still blindfolded?" Roy tugged at the thin fabric bound over his guide's eyes.

Scar jerked his head away. "Leave it. I'll explain later."

Mystified, Roy obliged. "This would be a lot easier if at least one of us could see the faces of the people he was talking to."

"I'm not talking to anyone here," Scar said heavily as he sat back on his heels. "I am only your interpreter."

Roy frowned. "I thought you were going to back me up on what happened a few months ago, and why we're here."

"I would, if my word had any value."

Roy's frown deepened. "If I don't end up executed for war crimes after this meeting I'm going to have a lot of questions for you."

The hubbub around them gradually quieted, and a man's voice, deep and rich, started a chant. The people seated around Roy hissed, then murmured as the chanter repeated himself. A few more men joined the chant, sounding hesitant at first.

Roy leaned close to the Ishbalan beside him. "Scar—is this some kind of greeting ceremony?"

"No." Scar let out a breath as first one female voice, then another, added a swooping countermelody to the men's sonorous thrumming. "No. This is...a song to purify the people." He paused, then murmured in what sounded like wonder, "_Sazamuz_. Listen with your soul, Roy Mustang. God is truly here."

"I'll take your word for it." Roy listened, turning this way and that as more voices joined the song and the tempo accelerated. His expression showed polite interest at first, but as the voices split into ever more complex intertwinings of phrases and music, his face clouded. The music ended with a sharp, antiphonal shout that rang around the stone walls and ceiling of the temple and startled Roy out of his reverie. The burbling of the stream cut in the floor accentuated the abrupt silence.

Nikai spoke, and Scar translated in subdued tones. "He names himself Nikai, who speaks for the tribe of Ganeha. He says that you have been allowed to come into this holy place on his word, and that of Rehena, who speaks for Naor. The other Elders will name themselves as they speak. You sit here before the tribes, and they will listen. The Elder asks your name, and the names of those you speak for."

"My name is Roy Mustang, and I'm here on behalf of my country," Roy answered in measured, formal diction.

Scar translated, then relayed the next question, "The Elders ask who sent you. Who chose you as the emissary, and what authority backs your word as a negotiator."

Roy paused. "Tell them I chose to come here on my own, and both General Augustus Grumman and General Olivia Armstrong will back any agreement I make."

There was a brief discussion among several aged voices following that, then someone new spoke up.

"I am called Shan," a woman's voice said in clear Amestrian. Scar stiffened beside Roy. "I speak for the tribe of Kerevah. I ask who this man beside you is."

"He's my guide...and he's become my friend."

"What is his name?"

"I've asked him that myself, Elder Shan. He's told me he has no name."

"What do you call him, when you speak to him?"

Roy hesitated. "I say 'Scar'."

"A good enough name for an exile," Elder Shan agreed. "Do you understand why he has no name?"

"From what he's told me, he was a...I think the word is _ivachadot_?"

"_Yevarshedaht_. You say 'warrior priest'. He gave an oath on his name, before God and my people. When he broke that oath, he broke his name. He is an exile."

"He's told me that, too. But—please forgive my ignorance, Elder, but I don't understand exactly what being an exile means among your people."

"Ignorance is no sin. He broke an oath taken before God and the tribes. Therefore he may not stay among us."

Nikai spoke up, also in Amestrian. "His word has no strength to us—but if you are willing to risk your name we will allow you to keep him to serve as your eyes."

Roy paused. "Are you asking whether I'll vouch for him?"

"We say that if you ask it, and give an oath on your name to accept responsibility for his actions, we will not drive him into the desert to live or die as God pleases." The Elder's flat, unyielding tone gave no hints to which option he preferred.

"I see." Roy sat very carefully still. "Is it possible for an exile to be accepted into...the tribe...again?"

"While there is life, all things are possible," Rehena answered calmly. "Would you trust him with your name?"

"Elder, I've trusted him with my life." Roy reached, found the exile's right shoulder, then followed it to the back of Scar's neck. His tone hardened. "I traveled here under his protection. Now I say he's under _my_ protection. I'll take responsibility—and if he's sent into the desert I'm going with him."

A loud murmur rippled through the temple as those who understood Amestrian translated for those who didn't.

Elder Shan spoke up. "You have said what you have said, and we have heard it." There was a strange finality to the words. "Now, I would know why you have come."

Roy let go of Scar. "I'm here to return something precious to your people, to negotiate an end to the war...and to offer what reparations we can."

Another aged male voice spoke up in Ishbalan, and Scar translated. "He is Reuven. He speaks for Naor. Rehena is his sister. He asks what precious thing you carry."

Roy reached into his belt pouch and took out the clamshell case. He opened it and turned it toward the Elders. "This, Admi. My people call it a Philosopher's Stone."

Scar took a moment to translate the next question. "What is this jewel, that you believe will cause more tears than we have already shed?"

Roy bowed his head, and laid the case on the stone floor in front of him. "It's an alchemical amplifier. Stones like this gave extra power to the alchemists who were brought to your land. I used one when I was sent to Ishbal. I didn't know-" he swallowed hard. "I didn't know then how the Stones were made."

There was some discussion among the Elders, then Reuven spoke again. Scar translated in a leaden tone. "Say what you know of the making of this Stone, alchemist."

Roy took a deep breath. "The Stone is made by capturing human souls and trapping them in a crystalline form."

Scar explained that in considerably more words than Roy had used, and a hiss of indrawn breath seemed to suck all the oxygen from the room, then that breath rushed out all at once and the air thickened to the point of crushing the life out of the foreigner. Babble started, then rose, none of it friendly. Another aged man spoke up, his voice trembling in barely-controlled rage. "This Stone is made of _our_ people? _Our_ children, our wives, our brothers, lie trapped in this demon thing?"

Roy closed his eyes and lifted his head, carefully relaxing his shoulders. "Yes. It was given to me so I could use it to retrieve my sight. But I - I can't do that. I brought it here to you, to ask forgiveness, and to offer my help in freeing these last prisoners."

Shrieks and roars of outrage greeted Scar's translation. A sword sang from its sheath somewhere near Roy's ear.

Nikai's voice barked, then an old woman's cracked soprano rose in a wordless, nasal wail. The singer chanted something in ululating tones, then dropped low and glided up high again. Another old woman joined her, the lament the more painful for its labored rhythm and unadorned rise and fall. Nikai spoke in time with the wailing, and Scar translated into Roy's ear. "There will be no blood shed in the temple, but the tribes must mourn the dead of the Stone, and the Elders must pray and learn what God meant in sending you here carrying this sign of murder."

"What does that mean? Do we need to go back out into the desert to wait?"

Scar offered the question in tones that fell into the pattern of the chant that was now spreading through the temple, and he translated following the rise and fall two octaves below the women's voices. "We here waiting-" He paused, and when he spoke again his grammar was correct but his words were marked by a noticeable Ishbalan accent. "The Elder says that you are free to go, if you choose—but if you do, he cannot offer you any protection from those who would shoot you in the heart for the sake of the dead."

Roy closed his eyes and took a breath through his nose, then let it out and listened to the dirge for a long moment before opening his eyes again. "What's our other option?"

"_Roden na tozari_. 'Prisoners of the temple.' We will stay on the east balcony, and be guarded by the _yevarshedaht_, until the songs for the dead are done."

"Prisoners awaiting execution?"

"No." Scar made a low noise in his throat. "The translation isn't perfect. The Elders are waiting for your answer. Trust me when I tell you that you won't be put in chains—and that your chances of survival, much less success, will all but vanish if you choose to go into the desert."

Roy paused for a long moment. "All right. I'll trust you on this. Tell them we'll stay here."

The chanting went on unbroken as the _yevarshedaht_ escorted Roy and his guide out of the worship room.

He was led on what seemed an interminable march through cool stone corridors, down a sloping ramp, then up a flight of narrow, high steps that tripped Roy up and drove him to his knees. Two warrior-priests gripped his biceps, and finally pushed Roy into a room that smelled of stone and water—then a heavy body was thrown into his back, making Roy skip forward and windmill his arms to stay on his feet. "Scar?"

"Roy." The vigilante sounded exhausted and pained. "Are you hurt?"

"Just my pride—and our chances of making any headway." Roy turned back toward Scar's voice. "You?"

"No." He switched into Ishbalan and spoke to someone beyond his shoulder. The answer came back iron-hard. Scar sighed. "Would you free my hands, Roy Mustang?"

"As long as it's not going to get us into more trouble." Roy reached and found Scar's arm, then followed it down to the rope knotted tightly around his wrists. He frowned and traced the knot tucked against the back of Scar's left hand.

"Pull on the loop near my smallest finger," Scar said in low tones.

Roy did as he was told, and the rope loosened. Scar let out an involuntary whoosh of air and pulled his hands free. "My thanks."

"Don't mention it. Where are we?"

"This is the small bath-we will bathe here." Scar rolled his shoulders with several loud pops. "When our bodies are clean the _yevarshedaht_ will take us upstairs to the balcony." Scar moved past Roy and settled to a bench to start undressing.

Roy hesitated, listening to Scar's movements and to the slight play of water. Then he shrugged and started toward Scar. "I feel like it's going to take most of an ocean just to wash the top layer of dirt off of me." He took off his overrobe. "Where do I put this?"

"There is a shelf on the far wall-move four or five steps forward. The shelf is-the height of your waist." Scar paused, then dropped into the gruffness that covered his embarrassment. "The sponge bowl is here beside me. The soap and sponges are ready. When you are clean you can sit in the pool. The steps into the water are two of my height forward, on your right." Scar dropped his clothing on the shelf and dunked a sponge in the bowl near the bench. A strong scent of soap wafted into the air.

Roy found the shelf and measured its depth with one arm, then lowered his head and took his gloves from his belt pouch. "I'm not comfortable leaving these here in the open while I'm in the water. Is there a locker or a trunk where I can put them for the time being?"

"No. But they will be safe."

Roy frowned. "Will you tell me if anyone gets too close to them? It's not just that I don't want to lose them, though that's true. But if anyone who was experimenting with alchemy even the slightest bit were to get hold of these..."

"Alchemy is forbidden," Scar reminded him. "But no one will touch that shelf without my knowing it." He poured water over himself with a deep sigh of what might have been relief, then went to scrubbing his hair. "Could another alchemist use your alchemy, if he had your gloves?"

Roy slowly stripped, tucking his gloves under his tunic on the shelf. "Another alchemist could certainly activate the array on the gloves, and could begin to alter the chemical elements." Roy fumbled, then found a deep ladle and a clean sponge. He faced carefully away from Scar and scrubbed as quickly as he could. "But he'd have no control, without a great deal of practice. If there was a spark in the room, he could set off a chain reaction that might burn everything in the vicinity to a crisp or suffocate anyone nearby."

"Mm." Scar ladled water over his head. "What will you do, when the Elders ask you to surrender your gloves?"

Roy paused, then worked his fingers in his hair. "I've thought about that, but I'm not sure yet. Letting them go would be a good demonstration of good faith, and it wouldn't completely incapacitate me, but I think it would be a demonstration of good faith on their part to let me keep them." He rinsed the soap from his hair before going on. "I think I'd have to insist that if my gloves were taken away that they be put under lock and key—and I carry the key. If there's even one kid in this city with significant alchemical potential-"

"Doubtless there is more than one," Scar interrupted. "You would be wise not to mention it in anyone's hearing but mine, though, if you notice it." He moved away, and a moment later splashed into the pool several feet behind Roy.

Roy snorted. "Don't worry, I'm well aware that this isn't the place for an alchemical recruiting drive." He rinsed, then turned and took a hesitant step toward Scar. "Is there a rail on the steps?"

"No—and the pool is deeper on this end." The water splashed a little.

"I wouldn't have expected a desert culture to use pools that big." Roy gingerly felt his way across the floor with his toes until he found the first step into the pool. He eased into the water, took a step toward Scar—and swore as his shin banged against a solid stone edge and he fell, scrabbling for the edge of the pool in an attempt to regain his balance.

Scar hissed, and got up to give Roy a hand back up to his feet. "I apologize. It didn't occur to me to warn you of the bath seat."

"I noticed." Roy turned and sat down on the bench that had surprised him. He picked up his right leg and felt along his shin, then experimentally rolled his ankle before examining his toes, grimacing. "Nothing broken. Just bruised as all hell."

"This day hasn't been kind to you." Scar settled back down in the water. "Your ribs are already black."

"I'm trying to tell myself that if I don't see the bruise, it's not really there." Roy leaned forward and dunked his head in the sun-warmed water flowing in from a pipe that entered from below the water level. He came up, rubbed the water through his hair, then took a breath and dunked again. He settled back against the wall of the pool, the water lapping gently around his shoulders. "Are we alone now? I can't hear anybody, but it would help to be sure."

"The _yevarshedaht_ are near the doorway, but they won't disturb us."

"I didn't notice a door closing."

"There isn't one."

Roy stiffened. "_There isn't a door?_"

"No." Scar took a deep breath, then let it out in a slow sigh, stretching his arms along the rim of the pool.

"So we've got an audience to our bath?"

"They're both married men, if that soothes your Amestrian modesty."

"Not particularly." Roy pushed his dripping bangs out of his face.

"Given those pictures I saw in the market-"

"That was different," Roy said curtly. He changed the subject before Scar could comment further. "Tell me—how do you know they're married men? Did they tell you?

"No—their sashes are textured. An unmarried man's sash is woven flat."

"And the colors tell you the tribe," Roy said thoughtfully. "Do you know all of the tribal patterns?"

"I know the patterns for most of the southern tribes, and the larger and more powerful tribes of the north," Scar answered.

"Let me guess—they don't always get along?"

"The history texts talk of times when the tribes had friendlier relations with foreigners than their neighbors to the north and the east."

Roy sighed. "This is getting more complicated every minute."

After they had bathed and put on clean clothes brought by one of the warrior-priests, Roy and Scar were led up long flights of stairs and along stone corridors to a door that led outdoors, where a faint breeze stirring across Roy's skin carried the sound of chanting voices.

Roy turned in place as the door closed and audibly locked behind him. "Scar-where are we?"

"The eastern balcony of the temple. Our packs are here, and there are water jars and food baskets for us. And-" Scar pulled Roy's left wrist down to the tight-fitting lid of a pot "-here is the chamber pot. Remember where it is—if you kick it over you'll clean it up."

"Right..." Roy straightened up and took a careful step away from the chamber pot. He found, then ran his hands along the waist-high railing of the balcony, following it and feeling for obstacles in his path. "So this is our camp for the night?"

"For the next five days. Maybe more, depending on which rituals the Elders decide to sing."

Roy turned back toward the big Ishbalan. "Five _days_?"

"It takes time to sing the dead back into the River's flow." Scar passed Roy, and lifted their luggage. "I'm going to spread my blankets and eat something while there's still some light."

"Food sounds good." Roy moved toward Scar, still following the rail. "You mentioned some baskets?"

"Yes—against the wall. To your right and forward a little. The water jars are the height of your chest, with dippers tied to the handles." Scar moved something—a box that scraped noticeably on the stone of the balcony, then a second box that rattled a little as the man set it down.

"Scar—what's that?" Roy felt his way to the box, then ran his hands over it, fingering the sturdy but unlocked latches. "This is my typewriter, but-" he reached for the second box. He turned it around and found the locked hasp. "This is the radio." He turned toward the Ishbalan. "How could they not recognize this as a radio set? If you saw one during the war I'm sure many other people did."

"Yes. Ask instead why the people took the trouble to bring everything we carried with us to this high balcony. Ask why you still have your gloves."

"Forget my gloves, ask why I still have my head." Roy rested his hands on the lid of the radio, pensive. "This is another test, isn't it? To see whether I'll wait, when I have the means to call in armies or," he fingered his belt pouch "level the entire city." He frowned. "That's one hell of a risk to take."

"A test, and a demonstration," Scar replied. "Every minute you choose not to use alchemy to kill or even make yourself comfortable demonstrates that you have the patience and respect of a thinking man, but it also proves to the tribes that the Elders were correct to let you live."

Roy stroked the lid of the radio set and listened to the sound of chanting coming from the open windows and skylights of the temple. "It seemed like the Elders and the people they speak for have very different opinions on what to do with me."

"That's another reason why the Elders chose to sing the dead into the River before beginning talks with you. The days of mourning will give them time to pray, to read, and to remind the tribes of the wisdom in our history." Scar spread his bedroll out, then opened one of the baskets. "I know it makes no difference to you, but the sun is almost gone, and I'd rather see where you spread your blankets."

"Preferably somewhere you won't step on me in the middle of the night," Roy said ruefully, rubbing his side a little. "I've got enough bruises for one week."

A shriek woke Roy out of a sound sleep, and he bolted upright as a woman's high scream rang through the chill night air. "Scar!"

Scar started to answer in bleary Ishbalan, then took a breath and said in Amestrian, "The woman isn't hurt." He jumped as a male voice roared somewhere close. "The screams are for the dead."

Roy listened as something crashed in the night beyond the temple. "This is part of the funeral rituals?"

"For those who died by violence, yes."

Cries and howls rose from all over the city, accompanied by thumps and crashes and another very familiar sound. Roy went taut and grabbed for his belt pouch, digging into it to pull out his gloves.

Scar put his hand atop Roy's. "No."

"There's a house on fire out there!"

"Not one anyone is using." Scar's fingers tightened. "That fire is a message to you. The souls caught in the Stone couldn't have died at your hand, but there are some in this city who carry a grudge against the Flame Alchemist."

Roy frowned. "Can you see where that fire is?"

Scar moved in his blankets. "Yes."

Roy took his gloves and got up. "Point me in the right direction and give me a range estimate."

"No."

Roy turned back toward his guide. "What do you mean 'no'? I can put fires out as easily as I can start them, and if there's no one in that house I don't need to worry about accidentally smothering someone."

"I know. But think of the message you'd send by putting out those flames."

"I am thinking of the message. Stopping that fire means I regret the damage I caused, and I want to stop it before it spreads further."

"That's what you would intend, but it's not how the tribes of Daliha would interpret it. That fire is their grief, and it's not yours to say when it will fade. It will burn itself out, sooner or later, and leave only ashes." Scar shifted a little. "Sit down and put your gloves away."

Roy stood at the rail a moment longer, listening to the howls and screams, then sat back down on his bedroll, spread beside Scar's and sheltered by one of the thick pillars supporting the balcony roof. "Will this go on all night?"

"Some will scream until dawn, but most will go to bed in an hour or two."

"I see." Roy put his back to the column and draped his blankets over his bare feet. "If we're going to be up anyway, maybe you could explain some of what happened today."

"Maybe I will." Scar moved, and sat down with his back to the temple wall, facing Roy.

"Let's start with why you almost jumped out of your skin when Elder Shan started talking. I take it you know her?"

"Yes," Scar said heavily.

"Is she a relative?"

"Yes and no." Scar hesitated, then reluctantly went on. "She speaks for my mother's tribe."

"Why did you jump when she spoke up?"

"I didn't know she—or any of her tribe—had come here." The end of the sentence carried a finality that said the subject was closed.

"I see." Roy startled as something crashed just below the balcony, followed by a chorus of shrieks and howls. "And we're 'prisoners of the temple'. What does that mean?"

"It means the Elders are willing to protect you, for the time being. They will pray and consult the books for guidance."

"And see whether or not I'll be patient and wait until the funeral rituals are over." Roy closed his eyes and set his jaw as stones crashed down and cut off a woman's scream.

"Yes." Scar took a breath and let it out.

Roy breathed in slow, deep sighs while pots and pans clanged and children wailed for their parents. "Is this going to happen every night?"

"No. This is the night of remembering the killing."

There was a sound of scratching on stone, then a male voice yowled within inches of Roy's ear. The next instant the Flame Alchemist was on his feet with his back plastered against the temple wall and a ball of fire in his gloved right hand. Someone loomed to his right, and he yelped and skipped back along the wall, bringing his other hand to bear with a fistful of flames at the ready.

_"Roy."_ A voice thrummed low and urgent. "Think in the now. Do you know me?"

Another shriek erupted somewhere in the courtyard close below the balcony, and Roy backed further along the wall until he ran into one of the water jars and lost his footing. He scooted sideways and opened his eyes wide, but found no light. Something had gone wrong, _the fire was gone..._

"Roy. Remember where you are." A man's voice, gravelly and with a light Ishbalan accent.

_Ishbalan_. Roy scrambled, and groped behind himself for shelter while still straining to pick out some patch of denser shadow in the darkness, a glint from a weapon, _anything_ to help pinpoint his enemies-

A younger man's voice spoke in Ishbalan, and the man snapped a harsh reply, then switched into Amestrian.

"Roy." His name swam through the fog of screams and fire. He snapped his fingers and heard the soft _fwump_ of ignition and his own panting, fast and desperate, but he couldn't _see..._

"Roy Mustang. Listen to me. _I am the Scar of Ishbal_."

_Scar of Ishbal_...Something snapped in his head even as the screams went on. He froze in stark terror.

_"We're calling him 'Scar' for now, since we haven't got a name for him and the only description we have is a big Ishbalan with an X-shaped scar on his face. Hard to see how anyone could miss a guy like that, but we haven't got a single lead."_

"Roy Mustang." The voice spoke again. "Do you remember the name of your horse? She is a grey mare."

"What?" He heard his own voice, strained and sharp. There was heat warming his palms, but no_ light..._

"Your horse." The Ishbalan spoke as though it was an entirely reasonable thing to ask in the middle of a firefight. "Do you remember her name?"

"Horse?" he repeated, incredulous. The question didn't _fit..._

...he took a deep breath as he _remembered._

"Oh gods." He swallowed and let the fire in his hands puff out. "Did I hurt anyone?"

"No. You only gave a foolish _ungwaiyar_ a scare he won't soon forget."

"Scar..." Roy ran a hand over his face. "Her name is Ghost—because she's soft-footed and grey. And I..." he wriggled his own fingers, then snapped them in front of his face, letting the fire warm his nose as well as his hand "...I'm totally blind." He extinguished the fire and let his hand fall to his side. "So whatever I see..." He shook his head and got up. "I've lost track of where I am."

Scar moved, then pushed Roy's shoulders around. "Your blankets are five of your steps straight forward," he said gruffly. "But you'll give me your gloves before you move."

Roy opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. "Any idea who that guy was?" He took his time stripping off his only weapons.

"The one who screamed in your ear was an _ungwaiyar_ of the Uryia tribe," Scar answered. He didn't let go until Roy surrendered his gloves.

"A what?"

"_Ungwaiyar_. One who is in training to be a_ yevarshedaht."_

Roy found the temple wall, and slowly traced it on his way back to his blankets, using his left hand to find the water jars before he ran into them. He sank down and sat, taking slow, deep breaths of the cool air until his heart slowed and the tremors in his shoulders and legs faded.

Scar settled down on his own blankets, spread beside Roy's. His breathing wasn't loud, and he barely even shifted his weight until Roy spoke.

"You've done that before, haven't you?"

"Broken into a waking nightmare? Yes."

"That was a good question to ask. About Ghost."

"I guessed it wouldn't be one you'd expect from an enemy."

"That's not a question I'd expect from a friend, either." Roy relaxed and leaned back against the wall even as the caterwauling went on in the city. "Thanks."

"Thank _you_." The sharp edges of Scar's words softened just enough for a hint of humor to slide under them. "For holding your fire long enough to let me ask the question."

Roy let out a short bark of laughter, then ran his bare hand up over his head and into his hair. "You do _puns_ now?" He shook his head to himself. "You've got a lot more..." He paused, then turned to face his companion. "You don't happen to play chess, do you?"

"I've seen it played."

Roy lifted an eyebrow. "Are you interested in learning?"

"If it will make this night seem shorter, yes." Scar shifted, then stretched his long legs. "The moon is bright enough to see a game board."

"Where's my typewriter?" Roy got up and groped until he found the box. "I put the set in here for safekeeping." He lifted the lid and fished out the worn-smooth wooden case, then opened it with businesslike precision, orienting it. "Now, this set is missing the white queen, but I think we can work around that."

"How is it you plan to tell the pieces apart?" Scar asked. "I don't see any markings on them to indicate which are black and which are white."

"Nor do I," Roy answered with a sardonic grin, "but I don't need to. Here." He offered the black knight to Scar. "It's hard to see, but unmistakable to the touch."

"It's smoother than the white ones."

Roy nodded. "Heymans Breda came up with it after he and I had some games that went awry because I lost track of where my pieces were. I didn't want to cut into the chessmen—they were a gift—but Breda pointed out that there's a noticeable texture difference between rough lacquer and smooth varnish. I've had the board modified a little, too. Now," he said more briskly, "you set up your pieces in a mirror image of mine..."

Someone in the city was singing. Roy drifted up from a vague dream, and sucked in a deep breath of cool morning air. The singer was male, and his voice rose and fell with practiced ease.

The sense of Scar's presence was gone. Roy hesitantly patted the exile's blankets, but found no warmth to indicate the Ishbalan had recently left them. "Scar?" Roy sat up.

"Mm." The voice of Roy's guide came from beside the temple wall.

Roy fumbled in his clothing from the previous day and found his pocketwatch. He probed its face and hands for a moment, then his brows furrowed. "Five-thirty in the morning? The funeral screams didn't stop until-"

"_Hush_." Scar's harsh whisper carried the exasperated irritation of a parent chastising an errant child. When he spoke again his voice was much softer and more reverent. "This time is for God. Listen, and imagine the sun rising bright over Golden Xerxes." The singer's voice rose and fell, gaining strength, then an odd echo...another singer far in the distance.

"These are the morning songs," Scar murmured. "My people have sung them at dawn for at least two thousand years."

"Two _thousand_...?" Roy paused to listen for a long moment. "What are they saying?"

"They are thanking God for their souls, their bodies, their parents and their children." Scar paused as a third voice joined the first two in a weird, off-balance harmony. "They give thanks for the brightness of the day, the warmth of the earth, and the depth of the water." He fell silent again.

Roy lowered his head and listened, his back against the cool stone pillar. After a while he straightened and turned toward the exiled warrior-priest. "Scar—what do you see?"

Scar didn't answer immediately. He let out a slow breath, then said, "My people were right to name this place Golden Xerxes." He paused for a moment. "Picture in your mind the fallen city under the moonlight. The sky turns first grey, then red, and the light turns stone to fire, for a moment." He let that sink in. "The sun begins to climb the horizon. It comes up behind the towers and the collapsed palaces of kings. A living man might almost think he saw the ghosts of the ones who built this place, swept along in the morning mist before it vanished. The light on the walls turns to gold." Scar shifted his weight, then said in a tone that mixed wonder and regret, "God is here, Roy Mustang."

Roy blinked, then turned and got up, stepping carefully around the radio box and going to the rail. He took a deep breath, and despite himself, he _strained_ to catch something, anything, of the light of Golden Xerxes. He closed his eyes and gripped the balcony rail tightly with both hands for a long, breathless pause, then deliberately relaxed and lowered his head. "Maybe so." He leaned on the stone and swept his unseeing gaze across the gradually waking city. "Maybe so."

_**Five**_

After the morning songs ended, Roy stretched out and went back to sleep. He woke to Scar's hand on his shoulder.

"Roy. Wake up and straighten your clothes. Elder Shan is waiting to see you."

"Mwhat?" Roy propped himself up on one elbow and rubbed the back of his neck. "Someone's here?"

"Yes. Wake up. Vrua Shan is waiting. She's brought tea for you, and two of the _yevarshedaht_ of her tribe are with her."

"I see." Roy swept himself into a tidy kneel, then ran one hand over his disorderly bangs and got to his feet. "I take it she's here about the fireworks last night?" He put out one hand and found Scar's arm.

"Wait and see." The twitch of Scar's skin under Roy's fingers belied his curiously monotone delivery. He lowered his voice still further. "Be mindful of Kuveh."

"Why?"

"He's fast."

"Coming from you that's a frightening statement."

"Kuveh and Elahi both have their swords. I have your gloves, if you want to be armed."

Roy hesitated. "Can our guests see us?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll do without them for now." Roy took a firmer hold on Scar's elbow. "I can defend myself if I have to."

Scar led Roy down the balcony at a decorous pace and spoke in a barely-audible murmur. "She will test you, to see what kind of man your country considers good enough to negotiate with us. If Kuveh speaks an insult, Shan put it into his mouth. Be strong and wise."

"Right," Roy answered. "Stay close, I'm going to want your opinion afterward."

"Yes." Scar stopped, and slipped out of Roy's grip. "The cushion is right in front of you. Here is the Elder, with Kuveh to her left and Elahi on her right."

"The morning is good, Roy Mustang," the Elder said from her cushion. "Perhaps you will sit and share tea with me." There was a dry rasp in her Amestrian.

"Thank you, Vrua, I'd be happy to have a cup of tea." Roy sat down and folded his legs. Scar settled down to his right, and Kuveh said something in Ishbalan. Scar's answer was curt, and Shan interrupted, then shifted back into Amestrian. "Perhaps the exile will go somewhere else while we talk of matters, Emissary of Amestris."

"I'd rather have him here, ma'am." Roy leveled his brows and turned his face toward Kuveh, projecting _do you really want to take me on?_ toward the warrior-priest. "Unfortunately, I'm not yet familiar enough with your language and culture to do without an interpreter, and these negotiations are far too important to all of us to risk them on a simple misunderstanding."

"You would do better to ask someone wise enough to keep his word, but the matter is a small one." Tea poured, and a cup touched the stone in front of Roy. "Here is the cup. I will drink tea with you, Roy Mustang, sent from Amestris."

"Thank you." Roy gingerly touched the cup. It was warm but not painfully hot, made of glazed ceramic, and taller than teacups in Amestrian cupboards. "This is one of the matters on which I'm not sure of the expected courtesies, Elder. Is it the custom for me to drink first, or is there a toast to make?"

"It is only tea." The Elder slurped audibly. "Do as seems good to you."

Roy picked up the cup in both hands and took his time bringing it to his face. The tea had a minty tang.

"There are many questions we would ask of you, but perhaps you have questions to ask us." The Elder audibly set down her cup.

"I do." Roy lowered the cup into his lap. "Foremost among them is the question of exactly who I'm talking to."

"I am Shan. Through me you speak to my tribe, and what you say to me I will say to my brothers and sisters among the Elders."

Roy nodded. "I understand that much, but I'm not sure who's included in your tribe and who isn't. For instance—if there are people of your tribe still at home in Kanda, do you speak for them, or is that someone else's job?"

Elahi spoke in a low growl. Shan answered in a reproving tone, then shifted back to Amestrian. "I speak for those of my tribe who choose to call me Grandmother. You mean to ask without asking—I say that message riders have gone into the desert. They will go and ask the Elders of the place you call Ishbal what the tribes there will do. They may choose to come themselves to speak for their people. They may send a sash with the riders. The sash will show that what we say to you, that tribe will also back. Some may send a knife." The pitch of her words fell, then rose again as she went on. "It is strange that you rode to this place when you say you mean to end the war that raged far to the south."

"My friend here," Roy nodded at Scar "told me that it would be better to talk to you first."

"Those words were wise," the Elder allowed. "My brothers and sisters who sit as Elders even now speak to the tribes, and remind the children and grandchildren that you could have traded the Stone of Souls for your eyes." She paused, then continued in a slow, low-pitched thrum that carried the weight of more than old age. "That you did not tells me something about you. That you chose to put not the Stone but your life into the hand of the exile, who was your enemy, tells me something else."

"He and I have both changed our minds about some things since the war." Roy set his teacup down by his knee. "Now my whole country is changing its mind. That's why I'm here."

"Our children and our grandchildren have brought us messages saying that the old king of your country is dead, and the new king has not yet been chosen."

Roy made his face and voice stay neutral. "That's true, ma'am."

"You said before the tribes that you chose yourself as the emissary."

"That's true, too."

"There are some who will say that your people said, 'Let him go and talk while we choose our new king, so our neighbors don't come to us with naked swords.'"

Roy frowned. "I admit that that's a reasonable suspicion, but it's not the truth in this case. The people backing me regret what our country has done to yours. They wouldn't have let me carry the Stone to you if they didn't truly want to end the fighting."

"What of those who don't back you?"

"Those who do back me are taking care of that, among other things."

"What have they told you of events in your country, when you talk to them on the radio?"

Roy lifted an eyebrow, then took the time to retrieve his teacup and drink before answering. "When I last talked to them, three days ago, they told me the army's pulling out of Central and letting the city police take over keeping the peace. They also passed along some messages from my family."

The Elder chuckled a little. "Then perhaps you should talk on your radio and tell them you are well."

"I will, Elder, if I have assurances that your people won't consider that a threat."

"Some will, but if they say to me, 'Destroy the radio, before it sends messages of war,' I will speak and remind the tribes that even if you spoke to your people and told them to send the tanks to this place, they would find nothing and no one but you and the exile, perhaps alive, perhaps dead, when they came." There was desert stone, weathered but not cracked by sand and sun, in her dry tone. "Yours are not people born to the desert and the horse. You don't know how to find the water, or hunt the animals here. Your trucks and your tanks cannot eat what grows near the wells, and your clothes are made for cool shade and not bright sun. Our hunters and messengers would see your armies long before they saw this city, and we would close the wells with stones and go."

"I see." Roy lowered his teacup into his lap and encircled it with his hands, rubbing a finger over its glazed surface. "I would expect there to be a few who would want to stay and defend their homes."

"Some would," she answered. "But there are matters that stand higher still than pride and the killing of invaders."

Roy slid his empty eyes toward Scar, then aimed them back at the Elder. "On that much we agree."

"It is written in our books that we are the Elders to all the races," Shan said gravely. "We must be the ones to break the chain of a hand for a hand, a life for a life, a city for a city, lest all the blood in the world spill out and turn the River red for the rest of time."

Scar shifted beside Roy.

"That's an admirable standard." Roy angled an eyebrow toward Kuveh without turning toward him. "It's not an easy one, though, especially when it's your loved ones you have to leave unavenged."

"Dead is dead," the Elder said bluntly. "Can you bring the dead back to life, alchemist? Perhaps with the Stone of Souls, full of the dead?"

Roy sucked in a short breath, then let it out and shook his head. "No. I could try, but I wouldn't succeed. It wouldn't matter how much power I threw into the array, I couldn't recreate someone I'd lost." He let some of his searing grief show. "I didn't understand the why of that until recently, but I've seen what happens when someone tries to break that barrier."

"What does happen?"

Roy took his time answering. "Some say the ones who are torn apart by the transmutation are the lucky ones."

"What do you say?"

Roy lifted his head and frowned. "I say those who try it and survive are the best arguments against trying human transmutation. Maybe the ones who die iare/i lucky. The ones who don't are changed forever, and it's not just a physical transformation."

"Why does such a thing fail?" The Elder's voice gave no hint of her thoughts.

Roy's frown deepened. "Does it matter?"

"What matters is what you know and will tell your people."

"Ah." Roy carefully relaxed his body and smoothed his expression. "It's not time to write my memoirs and tell the world what happened yet."

"Yes, you are young. Perhaps too young for the burdens you carry?"

"I'm older than I look, ma'am," Roy answered blandly.

"Not old enough to know that a secret is heavier than the earth, more dangerous than lightning, and more sought by men and by women than all the riches that ever were or will be." The Elder leaned toward Roy. "We are taught by our grandmothers and our grandfathers, down a thousand years and another thousand years—when the ones who know say nothing to those who ask, sooner or later there will be tears and blood again."

"That's true, but there are also people who think that they can do better than everyone who came before," Roy answered quietly. "And even a few who are crazy enough not to care who gets hurt as long as they get what they want."

"Yes. There are always some like that." The Elder poured herself more tea. "That is why there are Elders, and the _yevarshedaht_."

Roy paused. "Forgive me if I've misunderstood, Vrua, but do you mean that there isn't any knowledge you would withhold from your children?"

The Elder tutted. "We have books that are closed. The children who want to read these things must study to be _jhastovar, yevarshedaht_, or must ask us, the grandmothers and grandfathers, to sit with them in the windows to read." She took a mouthful of her tea.

Roy waited a moment. "How much of this time in history will you write in the closed books?"

"That remains to be seen," Shan answered. "Perhaps some. Perhaps none at all. These days and years must be remembered by your people and mine." She paused, and when she spoke again there was only an old woman's grief in her voice. "There are nights when I wake with the sounds of the bombs still loud in my ears, and other nights when my grandchildren run to my bed and cry beside me because they dreamed of their father getting up from the street where he died and coming to carry them back to the grave with him."

Roy nodded without lowering his head. "These days the only things I see are memories. Some of them are good—but everyone I know who fought in Ishbal has nightmares we can't explain to someone who wasn't there." He tilted his head a little. "We can talk about whether or not it's a good idea to pass on everything we saw and did—but can we agree that we don't want any more children to see their dead fathers in nightmares?"

"That is where your nation and mine will begin, when it is time to speak of matters of nations. Know this—the _jhastovar_ will write all that is said and done here." The elderly woman got up with the help of Elahi. "Think and pray on the wisdom of taking your nightmares into silence and the River with you. Better your grandchildren learn from your words than they suffer the same torments you did to learn what you knew but did not say." She moved and put a hand on Scar, saying something brief before returning to Roy. "Perhaps we will have tea again."

"I'd like that." Roy got to his feet. "Thank you for the tea and an interesting conversation."

"Be at peace, Emissary." The Elder picked up the cushions and left at a dignified pace. The door closed and locked behind her, leaving Roy and Scar alone on the balcony again.

"Well—I think I passed that test, whatever it was." Roy passed a hand over his face, then followed the rail back toward his blankets. "What did she say to you?"

"She told me to be a wise slave to you."

"_What?"_ Roy narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips into a thin line. "Is there any way I'm supposed to take that that _isn't_ an insult?"

"It's not directed at you," Scar got up, filled their cups from the water jar, then downed and refilled his own before coming back to put Roy's cup into his right hand. "The message was meant for me, and it offers me a reason to hope."

"Scar..." Roy sank to his blankets and massaged his temples with his fingertips. "You've lost me. Would you explain just how being told you're a slave can give you hope?"

"The Wise Slave is one of our stories. The slave of the story wins more than his freedom..." Scar trailed off.

"More than his freedom?" Roy prompted.

"_Dyenes Yeta matevi shahntar_," Scar breathed. He set down his cup with a clatter.

"What? Scar-"

"The Elders are taking your mission seriously, Roy Mustang," Scar answered with an audible flutter in his chest. "Vrua Shan just proved their sincerity."

"Any time you want to go back and fill in the gaps between all those leaps of logic, let me know," Roy said a little testily.

There was an edge of hysteria in Scar's chuckle. "Sa-_sazamuz_. I'd forgotten." He took a deep breath and collected himself. "Elder Shan knew you would ask what she said to me. You're an intelligent man, and therefore curious. So she told me to be your wise slave, knowing I would tell you—and that I would explain what this meant." He drained his cup in one swig, then went on. "The wise slave was a warrior taken captive and sold as a naked slave—no better than a dog. His master was a cruel foreign prince, who tried to break him with humiliation and beatings."

"I don't think I like the role I'm being assigned, here," Roy said darkly.

"It is as much your country as you personally," Scar answered. "The foreign prince knew no better—he'd been driven out of his country by his own brothers, because there was a prophecy that the youngest brother would gain the greatest power and rule that kingdom and more. The wise slave taught him that the way to gain that power was to treat those who served him—even his horse and a slave who wore only an iron collar—with respect, because a follower who chooses to follow is far better than a man who serves because he fears a whip."

"I still don't see how that's not an insult," Roy said stiffly.

"Elder Shan is no fool," Scar told him. "You put no chain around my neck, and even if you had, I could have walked away from it if I chose. You've trusted me. We were enemies. Now you risk offending an Elder to insist that I stay close to advise you."

"I thought she was just testing me to see whether I'd back down without a fight."

"She was. She also wanted to know your opinion of me. She knows what I think of you simply because I led you here, to my people, rather than breaking your neck as you slept."

"And I haven't roasted you alive." Roy smiled a little. "I hope that counts in my favor."

"You have the power of a State Alchemist, but you've chosen not to use it against me, even though I killed your brother alchemists," Scar answered seriously. "Shan wants to believe this is the end of the bloodshed. By making me the wise slave she made you the foreign prince—the man who only needed a guide to help him find the right path."

Roy sat in profound silence for a long moment. "She said all of that in one sentence." He shook his head.

"We say, 'The young man talks all day and his words blow away in the wind. The old man speaks once and his words are carved in stone.'"

"Or written in history books." Roy took his cup and went to the water jar. "It makes me wonder what hidden meanings they'll find in whatever I say to them."

"The Elders will treat you as the foreign prince. In the story, he became a good man with the help of his slave, and his people chose to follow him into battle against his cruel brothers. When the foreign prince won the throne of his kingdom, he sent the wise slave home to his people with a thousand men to help build up the city walls and dig new wells to water the fields. The wise slave wore a collar for the rest of his life—but the collar he wore to his grave was made of gold and precious stones." He put a hand on Roy's shoulder. "For now my collar is iron, but in time I may return to my people wearing gold." He squeezed Roy's shoulder gently, then got to his feet and went to rinse out their cups.

"No pressure or anything," Roy said softly to himself. "So—are we likely to have any more guests?"

"I don't know. Some of the other Elders may come to talk to you and take your measure. Nothing will be done officially until the dead have been sung back into the River and the messengers have returned from the south."

"So we've got a lot of idle time on our hands."

"Mm. Time enough for you to learn another phrase or two, perhaps."

"I'm still working on the last one. _Boksa ag kizzay kadlu saayeej eyda_." Roy said carefully.

"_Bazai a kekzai katilu sahij eda_," Scar corrected. "Push your tongue closer to your teeth."

"Your people get a lot of exercise just talking," Roy said ruefully. "_Bakzay_."

"Yours talk with their tongues halfway down their throats," Scar answered amiably. "My teacher used to say that someday he'd like to know what you swallowed that you were working so hard to retrieve."

Roy laughed. "We're not the worst there is. Have you ever heard a northern Caledonian talk?"

"No," Scar answered. "I read stories about them as a student, though."

"Track someone from there down sometime and buy him a beer," Roy grinned. "Then ask him how to say 'I like a dark beer' in his language."

"You speak from experience." The question was barely a hint in the rhythm of the words.

"A lot of experience. My friend Hughes' parents were Caledonian, and his father was from the far north of the country. Maes taught me a few phrases, but he was born in Amestris, so didn't have the right accent. His mother sounded like a purring cat when she talked, and his father could roll his words around until he sounded like a thunderstorm warming up." Roy's face softened a little into the memory. "Maes and I meant to go and see his family's hometown, and find out whether the fish were as big as his father swore they were." His smile faded. "We never got around to it, and I never made the time to go and see it for myself." His head lowered. "Now I never will."

Scar gave the ache the silence it merited, then asked, "What of your parents?" He paused. "On the road you said that you can pass for Xingese to anyone but the Xingese, and that you speak the language."

"One of them," Roy answered, his tone brittle. "_Fahenja knen d'nikee ukundiyiti nvawa hui chen._"

"What did you say?"

"I told you that I might be a skinny little kid, but you're stupid, and I'll grow up someday." Roy settled back against the pillar and rested his head against the stone. "I used to say that a lot, usually to kids who didn't understand a word of it but chased me all the way home anyway."

"You showed them up in school?"

"Not then." Roy shook his head. "At that age I was just the skinny little slant-eyed halfbreed who didn't understand much Amestrian beyond 'two Steam Donkeys doubled' and lived in a bar that was supposedly a front for a brothel." He raised one shoulder, then dropped it in a slow shrug. "I was the easy target."

"How old were you?"

"Seven, my first year at school." Roy rolled his head along the pillar to focus on his guide and tutor. "What about you? Somehow I doubt you were ever called little."

"My brother called me his baby brother," Scar answered with something that might have been wistfulness in his tone. "Even when I grew taller than he, I was 'baby brother' with him. He said he remembered the day I was born, and..." He trailed off, then went on after a long pause. "He said that when he first held me he didn't believe I would ever grow even as big as he was—and he was only in his sixth the year I was born."

Roy smiled a little. "Strange, isn't it, how our perspectives change, and we only notice it in retrospect?"

"Retro-?"

"Retrospect. Hindsight. Looking back." Roy sat up a little straighter. "Which reminds me—we should get back to my lessons. Can we try that 'have a cup of tea with me' phrase again?"

"So long as you promise not to try it on anyone but me until you can keep your Amestrian tongue from substituting a goat for God and the moon for tea."

"I only did that once—and I think anyone with a sense of humor would laugh instead of accusing me of blasphemy."

"Best not to take the chance. Give me 'tea'."

"_Saeegh_."

"That's the moon again."

"Dammit—say tea and then moon."

"_Sahij, saij_."

"You see how easy it is to confuse them? They sound almost identical."

"No, they don't. You aren't hearing the distinctions. Listen."

Those passing through the courtyard below heard the two voices drilling Ishbalan phrases and occasionally arguing over pronunciation for much of the rest of the afternoon.

Roy waited until the Ishbalans had finished their evening services and what according to Scar was a funeral procession but sounded more like a particularly enthusiastic festival parade. Then he unlocked the radio box and began laying out the aerial. "Too bad we didn't end up on the west side of the building."

Scar took a moment to answer. "The signal will be blocked?"

"I hope not—but I have a feeling all this stone" Roy paused to tap his knuckles against the stone under his feet "will prove to be too much for even comprehensible telegraph code to get through."

Scar came closer, and ran the antenna wire through his fingers. "Would it help if this wasn't under the roof?"

"Yes, but I'm not about to risk transmuting anything here."

"You think too quickly of alchemy," the Ishbalan told him. "Put your hand on the wire and call to me when there's no more of it to pull."

"What? Scar, what are you doing?" Roy hurriedly stood as his companion moved.

"Taking the wire out from under the roof." Scar grunted a little, and air shushed past Roy's shoulder. "Tell me when there's no more of it." Clothing rustled, then Scar's bare feet padded along the roof.

Roy sank down beside the radio box, and let the wire run through his fingers. There was more of it than he'd thought, but eventually the reel clicked. "That's all of it, Scar!"

The Ishbalan exile thumped back onto the balcony floor a minute later. "It's tied between two of the small spires."

"I guess you're not afraid of heights," Roy answered.

"I started running the walls and climbing the temple the year I was six," Scar said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'll take the wire down as soon as you've finished talking to your people. Boys on roofs rarely notice something new until they fall over it."

"I know the feeling," Roy said ruefully. He bent to the task of cranking the radio's battery.

The signal crackled with static, but it was recognizably Vato Falman's voice, repeating complex alchemical equations in northern Xingese and demanding the solutions to the puzzles.

Roy frowned, but did the math in his head and answered in rapid Xingese. [Six hundred fifty-two to the nitrogen well and ninety each to silver, lead, and gold wrapped in a reversed dragon. Triple thirty-fives on each corner of the second round, oriented all to the north and sealed with frozen fire. It waits for the dawn.] _It's me, what's gone wrong?_

[Where is the salamander?] _Where are you and are you all right?_

[On the stone in the sand, under the moon and beside the standing lines.] _I'm in Xerxes, and safe for now. Scar's with me and he's not showing signs of turning on me._

There was a hissing, then a loud pop in Roy's ears and another voice, using a high-level military code. Olivia Armstrong could make even a radio signal chilly. "Verified. Report, Mustang."

"Hello, Olivia, how nice to hear from you," Roy drawled in the same code pattern. "Scar and I are fine, thank you for asking. Our hosts have given us accommodations with what Scar tells me is a lovely view of the city, and as far as I can tell they might even decide not to execute me. How are you and the rest of my friends back home?"

The major general snorted. "Your people are here. They've been climbing the walls for days and they're perched like vultures waiting to snatch every word from the speakers. Does that satisfy your inflated ego?"

"Not even remotely, but never mind. What is it you wanted so much to tell me that you took the time to sit in on the radio call?"

"I have things under control here. What I want is to know what you've accomplished, besides saving your own skin."

"For now, I've got the local Elders saying they're willing to talk about opening negotiations. They've sent messengers south to coordinate with the leaders in Ishbal." Roy relaxed back against the pillar beside his blankets, and said casually, "You might want to make sure the soldiers in the area know those guys on horseback are arranging peace talks. It would make my job a lot harder if any of them got shot by a jumpy kid who's heard a few too many stories about Ishbalans." Roy rubbed his chin. "In fact, why don't you just pull those soldiers out?"

"Have they asked for that?"

"Not yet, but I'm fairly sure they will, as a sign of good faith. Let's beat them to the punch—pull the jumpy kids and everyone else out."

"No." Olivia's tone brooked no argument. "Ishbal is too volatile."

"It's going to _stay_ volatile until something changes, General," Roy answered. "Look at it this way—right now we've got supply lines running all over Ishbal, as well as the administrative problems of running a district full of people who currently hate us. We've also got Drachma and Aerugo and Creta to consider. Pull our men out of Ishbal, and we'll have more troops to distribute to our other borders, where the threat is a lot more potent than a remnant population living in a ruined country and carrying weapons that were second-rate twenty years ago."

There was a long moment of static hissing in Roy's ears, then, "You know what their warrior-priests are capable of."

"All too well—how many more men do you want to sacrifice to them to hold territory taken to finish a monster's project?"

"Retreating will make us seem vulnerable."

"Seem, Major General. Not be. It could be a useful deception—who would you most like to draw into the trap of thinking us weak?"

"You have a point." The commander of Briggs spoke without hesitation. "I'll consider your request, Colonel."

"That's all I ask."

"What else do you have to report?"

"I'm learning quite a bit about Ishbalan culture. Did you know they sing at dawn every morning? Scar tells me the songs are thousands of years old."

"That's not what you're there to do, Mustang."

"Isn't it?" Roy asked mildly. "I need to know the people I'm negotiating with, if I'm going to bridge the gap between our country and theirs." His tone hardened. "Especially since we not only cut that gap, we filled it to overflowing with their blood."

"You're not there to beat your chest over your own guilt, either, Colonel. You're there to arrange peace terms so we can turn our attention to other threats."

"It's the same thing," Roy said bluntly. "Right now these people are busy holding funeral rites for their god knows how many of their family members. They've asked me to wait until they've said their goodbyes, and that's what I'm doing."

"And how long do you think it will be before they decide you've waited long enough?"

"According to Scar, at least five days, and he wouldn't be surprised if it was more than that." Roy shifted his weight. "Which is probably safest for me. I think I'm still alive because their Elders decided to hold the funeral first. Besides, nothing will be decided until those messengers come back from the south."

"How sure are you of Scar's loyalties?"

"About as sure as I am of yours. His agenda and mine are pretty closely aligned, at least on the 'let's try not killing each other for a while' part. I'd like to talk to my people now."

"Tell the Elders we expect a significant concession for pulling our soldiers back to the border." There was another lengthy hiss of static, then Falman's voice came back on.

"We were listening, sir. Are you really all right?"

"I take it the major general has stalked off to terrorize someone else?"

"She left, sir. I don't know where she was going." Falman's wording was a warning. _We're not entirely secure, sir. Internally or externally._

"I see." Roy grimaced. "Well, is there anything else you have to tell me?"

"Jean wants you to know he's seeing a bottle blonde." _We've got eyes on the Major General. She's up to something._

Roy lightened his tone. "Is he? Tell him not to let her find out he knows about the bottle, or she'll break it over his head." _Play along with her and lie low until I give you the cue._

"Will do, sir. Is there anything else?"

"Say hello to Madame and her girls for me, would you please? I miss the egg wraps." _Tell my foster mother to tap her sources and send you anything the least bit unusual, I don't want any surprises._

"Yes, Colonel. Take care, and check in a little more often." _We'll have someone on the radio all night, every night._

"Will do. Good night, all of you." Roy flipped the switch and sagged against the pillar, taking a deep breath before lifting the earphones from his head. "Well—it seems politics and intrigue in Central are doing very well without me. What a letdown." He started packing away the radio.

"I'd like to hear what you said in all of that nonsense," Scar answered. "I'll get the antenna." He was up on the rail and then up the pillar to the roof in a moment.

"I'd like to know how you can climb like that without being half monkey and half cat," Roy murmured to himself as he packed the radio.

The typewriter bell rang, signaling the end of a line. Roy muttered under his breath, but pressed the carriage return and began another line of extremely cryptic notes, typed at the smallest setting with the lines as close together as the machine allowed. He was already on his third sheet of paper.

"Do you have that much to record?" Scar spoke over the clatter of keys and typebars.

Roy paused for a moment. "Not really. It just takes a lot longer than it should because I'm still relearning how to type." He hit a few more keys, then turned toward his Ishbalan guide. "Is the noise bothering you?"

"I'm not the one sitting next to the machine," Scar answered. "I would expect someone to come and ask you to stop for the evening prayers, though."

"I will—I can only take the racket so long myself." Roy went back to his notes, typing a few characters, then checking them with two fingers of his right hand. He typed until the bell rang, thumbed the carriage release...and groaned as something within the machine ground, then made a loud _clunk._ "Dammit." He opened the tool drawer built into the bottom of the traveling case and took a small screwdriver from its padded nest.

"It's broken?" Scar sounded more than a little nonplussed.

"It's dirty," Roy answered. He took a small brush, a rag, and a small bottle of machine oil from the drawer, then closed and latched it. "It must have picked up more dust on the trip than I thought." Roy set the typewriter up on its left side, then loosened the captive screws and pulled the back and bottom plates off.

"Do you need help?"

"Not for a simple cleaning," Roy answered. "If there's something mechanically wrong I might need your eyes." He braced the machine between his knees and started the time-consuming process of testing, cleaning, oiling, then retesting each lever and spring.

Scar lapsed into the peculiar silence that reminded Roy of the outcrops of the desert. The reddish-brown stones Roy remembered seemed only marginally more rooted to the land and indifferent to the passage of time than the Ishbalan apostate.

Roy's woolgathering ended with a sharp metallic ibang/i and the squall of outraged fingers. His reflexive yank only cost him more skin, and Roy swore, trying to get his right hand around the carriage and pull it back against its springs to release his left.

"Don't." Scar abruptly loomed, and he took hold of Roy's right wrist. "Let me look."

Roy closed his right hand into a fist, but did his best to take some deep breaths and let the Ishbalan size up the problem.

Scar grunted, then reached past Roy's trapped hand. "The mechanism is jammed in the front." His arm moved, and there was a sharp _spung_ from the innards of the typewriter. "There are levers wedged together." Another movement, then Scar's shoulder pushed against Roy's chest and the big man muttered something in Ishbalan. "You didn't notice the loose rod."

"No, I didn't, _because I can't SEE!_" Roy roared in Scar's ear.

There was a single swift motion, then a big hand daubed with dirt-fouled oil grabbed Roy around the throat. "That is no fault of mine, alchemist. You _chose_ this life." He let go and worked his way back into the typewriter's mechanisms. "Don't expect those of us who never had that luxury to cry for you."

Roy forced a hissing breath out through his nose and ground the heel of his right hand against the bridge of his nose, and restrained any further sound until Scar's careful poking and fiddling freed the carriage and Roy's throbbing fingers. The vigilante picked up the typewriter, set it down close to his blankets, then returned a moment later and put their first aid kit and a small bowl of water by Roy's knee without a word.

Roy took his time cleaning and bandaging the multiple small cuts on his hand, then putting away the kit and cleaning the bowl. He settled back down on his blankets. "Thanks."

"Mm."

"I'm sorry," Roy ventured. "You're right, I shouldn't take my frustrations out on you."

"No, you shouldn't." Scar paused a moment, then went on grudgingly, "But you were in pain."

"I still am, but you were only trying to help." Roy draped his left hand across his lap.

"You're still learning your limits." Scar picked up the tools Roy had dropped, then settled back down. Metallic noises and the smell of oil floated on the almost-still air.

"I suppose I am." Roy turned his face into the minimal breeze. "Though I prefer to think of it as finding my current limits so I can either push past them or find ways around them."

Scar worked for a minute or two, then said abruptly, "Who do you fear most?"

"What?" Roy paused, then shook his head. "That's a long list."

"Why?"

Roy turned toward his companion. "Because there are so many opportunities for one person's mistake or malice to destroy everything we're working for."

"And you mean to do what is necessary to fend off that mistake or malice." Scar turned and spoke toward the evening sky. "A large goal, and a dangerous one."

Roy nodded. "Beyond dangerous, on more than one level." He smiled thinly. "There's a little of your sazamuz back to you—ask yourself why the person I'm most afraid of is myself."

Author's Notes: A lot of this story grew out of discussions with kashicat about what would have happened if Roy _hadn't_ used Marcoh's Stone to buy back his sight. However, I have added, rewritten, and rearranged so much that whatever faults you may find in this are mine, not hers.

For definitions of and commentary on the Ishvaran words and phrases used in this story, please visit the Ishvaran Glossary at .net/s/6926114/1/Ishvaran_Glosssary . I'm using it for this story, and my co-conspirator Fractured_Chaos and I are using it for a story set in the same world. It's called _Arcanum Paterfamilias_, and you can read it at .net/s/6926015/1/Arcanum_Paterfamilias


	2. Chapter 6

Their lives settled into a daily pattern of combating boredom punctuated by a daily trip to the small pool for a brief and well-guarded bath. Roy and Scar spent most mornings drilling Ishbalan phrases. Repairing Roy's typewriter occupied two afternoons. Chess accounted for three more before Scar asked the guards for and was given another type of board game called _xakea_, the strategy of which shifted according to which combination of twenty pieces one drew from a bag of ninety. Roy's radio calls were brief check-in messages, confirming that he was alive and had nothing new to report.

It was the morning of the ninth day that the _roden na tozari_were quite ceremoniously and courteously informed that the Elders wanted to talk to the foreign emissary. Roy and Scar took their bath early and were escorted into the temple courtyard, where a sizable crowd of people and a thick cushion for Roy awaited them.

Elder Nikai spoke, and his voice won quiet from the people of Xerxes. Scar leaned close and murmured, "He names himself Nikai, who speaks for Ganeha and Nochi—one of the tribes of the south has sent him a sash. He calls you a patient foreigner who has come to bring the words of his people, and he says that the Elders of the north and the south have decided to hear what you will say." He paused to listen for another moment, then went on. "There are three Elders from the south here. They will name themselves when they speak. Have a care to memorize their names and their tribes. I expect they will choose to speak to you through me rather than use your language, but don't assume they don't know your words."

"Any idea how receptive they're going to be?" Roy asked _sotto voce_.

"They're here. Count that a victory for now." Scar straightened up as Nikai raised his voice, then shifted into Amestrian.

"You have waited with good patience, Roy Mustang," Nikai said. "Are you rested from your traveling?"

"Yes, I am, Elder," Roy answered. _"Yuhz hodmzrit."_

A soft titter rippled through the onlookers, but Nikai answered with dignity. _"Izan binkatu,_son of a foreign woman. You act wisely, to learn a little of our words. Would that some others would learn from you."

A moment's restless stirring answered that.

"I'm hoping all of us can learn from each other," Roy replied diplomatically.

Another of the Elders spoke up in Ishbalan. Scar hissed through his teeth, but translated.

"He names himself Etan, who speaks for the tribes of Ahn, Teba, and Parjun. They are far eastern tribes—be _careful_of him. He says there are some who say you are not the Mustang who burned the plains of Daliha. They say that the man who did those things would not wait on the balcony while we sang for our dead."

Roy frowned. "In a way those people are right, Elder. I remember Daliha—I see it in my nightmares—but I'm not the same man I was then."

"We also see the fires in the night," Etan answered through Scar. "You didn't answer the question. Are you the master of fire?"

"I'm the Flame Alchemist." Roy sat back on his heels and faced the Elder.

"I would see proof of this."

Hisses and voices protested, and a noisy argument broke out. Roy leveled his brows, then reached inside his tunic for his gloves.

A heavy hand clamped around his left wrist. "Showing off won't help."

"I'm not that stupid," Roy growled. "But I want everyone to see that I've had this weapon with me all along and chosen _not_to use it."

"They already know that. That _ungwaiyar_you frightened likely told the entire town in hopes of swaying the judgement against you." Scar raised his voice and bellowed something in Ishbalan without letting go of Roy's wrist.

Nikai answered directly, in Amestrian. "Roy Mustang. The gloves you carry are your weapon."

"Yes, they are." Roy pulled free of Scar's grip.

"Can you call to the fire without killing?"

"Yes, Elder, I can." Roy laid his gloves in his lap and spread his hands. "But I won't unless you give me permission to use alchemy for a reason other than self-defense."

"Show us," Shan spoke up.

"Yes, show what you have chosen not to do while we sang," Rehena chimed in.

"As you like." Roy tugged on his gloves. "Scar, how much open space have I got?"

"Three of your body lengths." Scar sounded stretched taut.

"Not enough for an architectural display. All right." Roy raised his voice. "Elders, are your people ready?"

"They are, son of a foreign woman. Show us that you can call the fire without killing."

"Right." Roy took a deep breath, let it out, then snapped his fingers and kept his face calm while a white-hot ball of fire rose straight up from his open palm. When the gasps faded he flexed his fingers a little, and the ball opened multicolored wings and lifted a head with eyes that burned blue. The phoenix bird opened its sharp beak and let out a shrill whistling call. Roy breathed softly, in and out, picturing what he wanted and bending the energy. He closed his hand into a fist, and the phoenix stretched its wings and circled in a tightening spiral down to its creator. Roy reached along the stream of energy and slowed the bird, then held out his bare right arm. His brows furrowed just a bit as the bird stretched out fiery claws and "landed", perching on an invisible glove a finger's breadth above Roy's skin. It spread its wings once more, then tucked its head under a wing and collapsed to a fireball that rolled up Roy's arm to his waiting palm, shrinking as it went. Roy held the palm-sized ball of fire for a moment, then banished it with a quick flip of his fingers and dropped both hands to his thighs.

The profound silence stretched, then Nikai said, "So." He switched into Ishbalan and spoke in measured phrases that carried a weight of formal pronouncement.

"Scar?" Roy turned toward his interpreter.

"He says that he is satisfied that you are the Flame Alchemist, and asks who might speak about this."

Roy's jaw tightened. "So this is my trial?"

"Mm." Scar listened for a long moment as multiple voices spoke up in angry, staccato phrases and aged voices answered. "The matter of your crimes as a man-" he paused to arrange the words "-your fate will be decided today. The fates of nations will take longer to settle."

Roy smoothed his face of expression and lifted his chin. "Will they give me a chance to answer the accusations?"

"Yes."

Roy waited, and when Scar didn't go on he muttered, "I'm open to suggestions."

"Speak honestly. The Elders will know if you lie or leave out something important." Scar hesitated. "You might tell them something of the true reasons for the slaughter of our people, and what you did the day you lost your eyes."

Roy sucked in a breath and let it out as arguments he couldn't understand flew over his head. "Are you sure that won't just make it worse?"

"Better to tell them that you killed for reasons you now understand to be wrong than for them to believe it is simply your nature to kill when the mood strikes you."

"You have a point." Roy turned toward one furious young female voice. "What is she saying?"

"She accuses you of using fire to trap innocent girls and grandmothers so you could take your pleasure with them. You sired children as a dog sires puppies."

"What?" Roy's eyes narrowed a little. "I did a lot of things I'd rather not remember in Ishbal, but I never took advantage of a woman." He paused to listen to the argument. "Does she claim I attacked her?"

"No." Scar shifted his weight. "You'll have your chance to defend yourself."

"I'd like to know what the other charges are," Roy said in a low rasp. "Aside from genocide and rape."

"Destruction of temples and our books..." Scar turned toward another voice that came from somewhere behind his right shoulder. "...theft of the food and animals our people needed to feed the children, fouling and sealing wells, kidnapping thousands of our people and separating them between the camps in your country...they mean to heap all the crimes on your head."

"I see," Roy said in a flat tone. "I suppose it's a good thing I'm used to playing for stakes much higher than just my life, then." He draped his hands over his knees and cleared his mental board. While angry words whirled around him, Roy Mustang considered the pieces he had and worked through his options. Most of them led him right into checkmate.

An aged voice finally rose and ended the accusations. The old man spoke, then Nikai answered him, and the people in the courtyard settled to sit on the stones, first a few at a time, then in groups. The tension eased a fraction as the Elders' quiet consultation stretched out.

Roy pitched his voice as low as he could. "Scar—what are they talking about?"

"I would guess that they're deciding who will speak the accusations and who will read from the histories," Scar answered. "They've sent a _sahiya_to the temple library for books."

A hard dry voice rose, and Scar translated in rapid syllables. "His name is Benyavin. He speaks for Takar and Yohna. He will say what you are accused of. Shan will read from the books." Scar paused as the Elder went on. Roy's name rippled in an unfamiliar rhythm in the midst of a lengthy statement.

"You have committed crimes against the tribes, Roy Mustang." Scar said clearly, his words resonating from somewhere about the level of his navel, from the sound of it. "You have said that you are the one who burned Daliha and its people. The people have said you are guilty of many other breaches of God's laws. Now you will be judged for these matters of the past. Have a care for your words and your soul. God also listens and will judge you."

"Understood." Roy straightened on his cushion and made his face and body settle into the cool, unflappable impassivity his staff called "His Imperial Colonel".

Benyavin said something more, and Scar's delivery tightened another notch. "Do you understand that the penalty may be execution?"

"Yes. I'm sure everyone here understands that." Roy let his eyes tighten just a little. "And maybe it's what I deserve. But if it comes to that, I want their word. An oath taken before your God, that if I'm sentenced to death I'll be the last one to die in that war."

Scar hissed. "And what do you plan to do when they refuse to give that oath?"

"Point out that there's a whole generation growing up in ruins and poverty," Roy said in level tones. "Remind everyone that more dead bodies don't ease grief or erase past horrors." He lowered his pitch. "You know it, Scar. Tell them."

Scar growled, but relayed Roy's words. The answer came back in sharp hisses and yells from the people gathered around them. Benyavin waited until a resentful silence fell, then spoke. Scar translated in neutral tones. "The people and Benyavin say that your death will hardly balance the loss of thousands of our people."

"That's the point." Roy paused and sat very still for a moment, breathing softly and picturing the air surrounding all of them. Every living thing in the city stirred it, keeping air and life forever in motion. "That equation can't be balanced."

Shan's voice interrupted, then rose and fell in measured tones.

"Is she reading?" Roy asked his guide.

"Yes." Scar said absently. "But..." He trailed off.

"But?"

Scar ignored him, his murmur matching the words the Elder read perfectly.

"Scar?"

Scar grunted, then said curtly, "She's reading the story of the first Crossing of the River. When-" he paused for a moment as the people sitting around them got into a protracted call-and-answer with the old woman's thin voice. Scar joined one of the responses, then caught himself and fell silent. He waited until Shan moved on with the story, then leaned closer. "It's the story of how the slavemasters drove us across the river into what are now our lands."

"That doesn't sound good."

Scar grunted again and listened as first Shan, then Nikai and Rehena spoke. Etan interrupted with a sharp statement in harsh tones, then Reuven commented in clinical, measured phrases.

"What are they saying, Scar? I can't defend myself if I don't know what's going on."

Scar took a deep breath as though coming up from underwater. "They...Nikai asked which of us would turn and swim back across the River with a sword to take revenge on the Aerugans for the chains and the whips." He startled and fell silent.

"What now?" Roy listened to the incomprehensible discussion, then blinked as a single word made sense. Nikai had just said _Scar._"Scar—what did he say about you?"

"I'm the one who left my people to starve in the desert to run after revenge," Scar said roughly. "The Elder asks who else will cut through our children to see the blood of foreigners mix with ours in the streets." He took a breath. "He asks who would choose to be like me, an exile alone who leaves behind only grief and the stink of blood."

Roy turned toward his guide, but Benyavin spoke up before Roy could beat him to it. Scar shook himself a little and translated.

"The Elder says that the tribes accuse you of disgracing our women and leaving halfbreed children in their bellies."

Roy felt his body tighten and knew he couldn't hide the outrage. He slid into it and let it pull his voice into a lower register. "I've committed a lot of unforgivable crimes, but that _isn't_one of them."

"Yet there are women who say the soldier who attacked them had an Eastern face and wore gloves like yours." Scar's translation offered no emotion at all. "Some of them bear the scars of fire."

"I'm hardly the only man in the Amestrian army with Eastern ancestry," Roy answered icily. "And I'm not the only man capable of starting a fire or wearing gloves."

"So you accuse our women of lying?"

"No." Roy took a breath and forcibly collected himself. "I think they were lied to and tricked. There are military regulations against 'making free with prisoners and civilians'. Giving another man's name to avoid a court-martial is disgusting but not surprising."

That led to a prolonged discussion. Roy took the opportunity to re-center his thoughts. By the time Benyavin spoke again, he'd created an entire freight locomotive in his head from the inside out, naming each part and listing its dimensions and functions with exacting precision.

"You burned many of our people. Then you and your soldiers stripped the land and left the survivors with nothing to eat or drink and nowhere to go."

"That's true."

"Is that all you will say about the matter?"

"There's not much else to say, _Admi._" Roy spread his hands. "I didn't like it then, but I told myself there wasn't anything I could do. Now I know better, but it's in the past and all I can do is regret it and do what I can to stop it from happening again."

Another lengthy discussion, then Reuven spoke, and Scar relayed the statement in the same neutral tones. "You rode across the desert to come to us. You carried with you a Stone of Souls, a thing of cruelty and evil full of our people. One might wonder what you meant in doing this. Are you here to mock us with your power? Do you mean to escape your guilt on our swords? Or do you truly believe those who rule your country sent you, a State Alchemist and a demon-driven man, to offer us a peace? You sit more steady as a threat than a hope, son of Amestris."

"I can understand why you see me that way, Elder," Roy answered, straightening his back. "From my perspective, though, I'm exactly the kind of man my country needs to do this work." He leveled his brows. "I've been a soldier all my adult life. My nightmares will keep me from giving up and throwing away more lives over petty feuds or to protect my pride."

Shan broke into the ensuing argument with a long reading, her voice creaking and rasping up and down the dry dunes of the words.

Roy leaned toward Scar. "What's she reading now?"

"It is...the story of the birth of the human race." Scar listened, then murmured, "She means to remind the tribes of the sworn oaths our ancestors made to God when She set us apart."

Roy added another note to his list of things to ask Scar about later, and settled in to wait.

The lengthy text was followed by a humming chant, then calm settled over the courtyard again. Nikai spoke in ceremonially measured tones, and Scar translated in similarly formal diction. "Roy Mustang. You are blind, and so you must be led or wear bruises from your falls."

Roy kept his expression smooth with difficulty. "Yes."

"You cannot read our books."

"No, I can't."

"What do you know of God?"

"Only what I learned during the war, and what Scar's taught me about your beliefs."

"You say you regret burning our people and our homes."

"Yes."

"Have you acted on this regret?"

"Yes."

"What have you done?"

Roy took a moment to weigh his answer, then deliberately swept his blind gaze to each Elder in turn. "Elders, I'm willing to answer that question, but in answering it I'll have to explain some things that you might not want your children to hear."

"You mean to say that your people created monsters using God's power." Shan spoke with dignity. "We already know these things. It is in our histories time and again—living things made by selfish men and foolish women rather than by God will only bring ruin and grief. Had you and your people read the books, you would have known this."

Benyavin spoke up in Ishbalan, his tone sour. Nikai answered, then Shan added something.

Roy leaned toward Scar. "What are they saying?"

The apostate hesitated. "Shan says that you and your people are thoughtless, vain children who need teaching."

"I take it Benyavin doesn't agree."

"He argues that we must preserve ourselves first."

The three-way discussion faded, and Reuven spoke, the Ishbalan words calm and cool.

"He wants to know how you lost your sight," Scar said softly.

Roy closed his eyes and turned his face away, gritting his teeth for a moment. "That's another story that might better fit into your closed books than an open courtyard, Elders."

"We will decide that," the Elder answered through Scar. "There is much that hurts to say, but it does not hurt so much to hear." Scar hesitated, then added, "If you ask leave for me to use it, the Elders may allow me to tell the story in the temple tongue, which is not so easily understood by children."

Roy pressed the heel of one hand into his forehead and rubbed fiercely for a moment. "And there's no way to get a more private audience?"

"The tribes will wonder what it is you have to hide, and what the Elders agreed to keep from them."

"You know what happened that day. How likely is it that I'll be condemned as a demon or something if I tell it?"

"No more likely than it already is."

"Well that's a cheery answer."

"Would you rather I gave you false hope?"

"No." Roy sat up and took a deep breath. "Ask them about using the temple language. If the parents want their kids to know, they'll tell them."

Scar asked, and after a moment's discussion Rehena said, "We will hear you tell the story in your words, son of Amestris. Very few of the children know enough of them to understand what it is you don't wish them to know."

Roy bobbed his head a little. "All right." He straightened his back and composed his face. "That was the day a life created by a man tried to become a god..."

Somewhere in the midst of Roy's narration someone brought a cup of water and set it beside his knee. A low susurrus of translation accompanied the Amestrian words.

"...Xingese alkahestry and Amestrian medicine gave me back the use and most of the feeling in my hands." Roy flipped his scarred right palm toward the Elders. "But there's nothing in my eyes to repair. Everything from the irises to the optic nerves is gone." He stopped, and picked up the water cup in both hands for a long drink. The water tasted slightly of clay.

"Yet you would see again, if you traded the stone full of our people for your eyes." Reuven's words gave no hint of his thoughts.

Roy took a deep breath in through his nose, then let it out before answering. "Yes."

"But you carried the Stone of Souls through your country and across the desert. You slept with it within your grasp, but you did not take it."

"I couldn't," Roy said a little hoarsely. "I couldn't do that. Not...not when I knew what..._who_...the Stone was made of.

"Ah." Reuven sounded satisfied, and subsided.

Nikai said something to the other Elders, then raised his voice and held forth.

Scar let out a small startled breath. The Ishbalan exile took a moment, then murmured in ungrammatical Amestrian beneath the ongoing monologue. "The Elders prayed, and spoken among themselves as well as tribes. You are—say "symbol" of old wisdom. Now come from past, future comes from now." He paused to listen as Rehena added something. "_Vrua_ Rehena says while there is life, there hope is—there _is_ hope." The exile added Nikai's follow up comment with more than a hint of graveyard humor. "_Admi_Nikai says that you are just one blind Amestrian among us. If you prove yourself more trouble than you're worth, we can kill you later, but the tribes had better make sure they won't change their minds before they bare the swords."

The people around them stirred restlessly, and finally someone made what sounded like a demand.

Roy tensed. "Who's that?"

Scar turned to look in the direction of the speaker, and when he spoke again his grammar was correct, though the words still rose and fell in an Ishbalan pattern. "Uryia. Doubtless a relative of that boy who screamed you back to the war. He argues that if you aren't to die for what you did in Daliha, you-" he hissed, then went on in disgust. "Cutting off your hands is the only part of his demand I will translate."

Shan spoke up, then Etan, both of them unswerving against the fury of the speaker.

"So the jury's deadlocked?" Roy kept his hands and face relaxed and his voice neutral.

"No. The decision is made." There was a note of uncertainty in Scar's words.

Etan shouted something, then got to his feet and launched into a fiery speech.

"He says that their hatred and grief are only human, but as the people of God we must leave it to God to settle our enemies. That the true God doesn't require human sacrifice, and despite your casual use of God's power, you are still human for now." Scar sighed, then continued as the Elder did. "Etan reminds the tribes of what will happen if you die. He talks of their brothers and children, their mothers and sisters in the camps and the roar of tanks." The vigilante's body tightened beside Roy. "He says that it's to the advantage of the tribes to let you talk—if nothing else it buys time."

"So he's one of the ones I've got to somehow convince that this is a real negotiation," Roy murmured. "Along with my status as a member of the human race."

"That will come with time." Scar answered quietly. He shifted his weight, then went still as Etan moved closer. "Etan says 'Say this to the foreigner. Roy Mustang, you killed our people with power that belongs to God, and God chose your punishment. You were born with eyes to see the works of God, but you destroyed God's works. So God took your eyes.'" The Elder crouched in front of Roy, his voice harsh and carrying in the dry air. Scar continued the translation. "You are a young man, and it may be that God gives you many years to live without light. You will suffer every day that you open your eyes without seeing the sun, or the faces of your children and grandchildren, as we will never see our children or grandchildren. We would have condemned you to death, but God chose instead to condemn you to life in the darkness of your own making."

Roy's hands and jaw tightened as he listened, but he kept his mouth shut.

Etan said something more in grim tones, and Scar translated quietly, "It is not for us to cut the throat of the one God has spared. So it is written in the books." Scar took a breath and added, "He's named you _udruezh_-one who was exiled but guided home by God."

"So—does that mean my word's no good?"

"No-" Scar stopped as Etan gave him a sharp command. The Elder got to his feet and said something over Roy's head to the people packed into the courtyard. Then he addressed a comment to Scar, whose answer was interrupted by Nikai, who got to his feet and approached, speaking with ritual solemnity. When he was only a few feet away, his narration ended in the sharp _tsing_of a drawn knife.

_"Scar!"_Roy hissed. "What's happening?"

"There is no death sentence—I can't tell you more." There was dread in Scar's tone. "It's necessary. Don't fight."

"You expect me to-" Roy stopped as Nikai said something sharp, then sank carefully and put his left hand on top of Roy's. Warm liquid smeared over Roy's skin, and the iron tang of fresh blood tainted the air.

"So," the Elder said in Amestrian. "I bleed." He took hold of Roy's hands each in turn, and spoke in Ishbalan, then went back into Amestrian. "I am old, and my blood runs slowly out. My blood and that of my sons Jezah and Seru is on your hands, Amestrian. Time and the blessing of water will wash it away, and the sun of my country will dry it up, and the wind will scatter it wide." He let go, then he moved, fast. A sharp blaze of pain whipped across Roy's face, slashing from cheekbone to cheekbone. Roy heard his own surprised yowl, then Nikai's voice again and Scar's strangled yelp. Roy pried his hands away from his scored face to reach for his gloves, if only to blot his bloodied cheeks with them, only to have his hands caught by Scar even as Nikai swept his fingers across the cuts in Roy's skin, then stood and yelled something that brought an eruption of noise from the citizens of Xerxes.

_"Don't!"_There was pain in Scar's voice, and his hands were also slippery with fresh blood. "He said, 'This is the last blood of the Western War.'"

Roy's breath caught, and he stopped struggling. "Oh gods." Speech pulled at the cuts just enough to make the outraged nerves redouble their complaints. Tears leaked down from above, adding to the sting.

"_One_god, Roy." Scar let go as Nikai made an impassioned speech over their heads. "And this ground is consecrated to Her."

"The last blood..." Roy put one hand to the stone pavers and the other to his throbbing face. "God. Scar...tell them yes, I'll shed the last blood of the war. I'd shed _all_of it-"

"Some will argue that the blood of every soldier in your country would not be enough," Scar hissed. "The Grandfather just ended that argument-don't undermine him."

"Sorry. It's hard to know how much to grovel." Roy gingerly probed the bridge of his nose, finding a thin cut angled across it. "A warning would have been nice."

"I was told to hold my tongue," Scar answered, strained.

Nikai crouched again. "So. The wound is raw and painful now, but once it is clean and sewed, it will heal and leave only a scar and a memory. In time I will be dust, and the scar of this day will go with me." He turned toward Scar. "Exile. You are the Scar of Ishbal-the blood on your face is the blood of those you abandoned, the blood of those your sword should have defended. Let it run now, and may God wash it away and leave only scars. In a little longer you too will be dust, _aksor_, and the scars on our land and our people will dry up and blow away with your bones." He took hold of Roy's right hand in both of his own. "You are young yet, _istaya_. The blood on your face is the stain of your people's sin...but in time you and your scars too will be gone, a memory known only from the books. For now-" he got to his feet again and said something in Ishbalan. A light female voice replied. Nikai sat down facing Roy, close enough to touch, and said softly, "Now the wounds will be washed and sewn by one who will see all of us become only memories."

Several people approached—one sounded like a girl in her teens, and two were grown men. A clay pot clinked a little as it was set down, and its contents sloshed.

The girl spoke in wary tones underlain by a faint tremor. Rehena, with her cane tapping, arrived and said something that made the girl titter and Nikai chuckle a bit. Then the Elder of Naor addressed Scar, who answered, then shifted into Amestrian. "The girl is named Izena, Roy Mustang. She knows something of medicine, and she's brought some" he paused to cast about for a word "_oinkent_."

The bark of laughter escaped before Roy could catch it. He regretted it immediately—his sliced cheeks brought a fresh wash of stinging tears for the movement. He used the pain to damp the humor. "_Ointment_, Scar."

"Ah." Scar paused as the girl spoke in rapid Ishbalan. "Izena wants to know what made my mistake funny."

"_Oink_is the noise pigs make," Roy explained, doing his best not to smile. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't laugh. Your Amestrian is a hell of a lot better than my Ishbalan."

"True." Scar paused to translate, then weather the embarrassment of his error a second time as the audience had a laugh at his expense. "Your Amestrian ears are so dull you haven't even noticed that we call ourselves _Ishvarun_, not _Ishbalan_." He stopped, then hissed a little and went on with more pain straining his voice. "The _oint-ment_ burns, at first." He took a breath, then went on. "In a minute or two...the burning will turn cold. Then you will feel nothing where the..._oint-ment_...has touched."

"Are you all right?" Roy reached toward his friend.

"The Elder only reopened the old wound," Scar answered. "Hush and let Izena wash your face."

Roy lifted an eyebrow, but allowed the girl to clean the cuts, then dab them with a pungent goo that stung more than salt tears had. He focused on his breathing and just remaining aware of his surroundings, of the sounds of movement, water sloshing, and voices, the heat of the desert sun pressing into his skin...

...the pain lifted, and for a moment its absence was enough to make him giddy. "Scar?"

"Mm."

"This stuff is pretty strong." Roy ran a finger along his cheek, finding the boundary between the feeling and unfeeling parts of his face. "Mind giving me an update?"

"Izena is stitching Nikai's hand. She'll see to you next—and I say you should close your eyes while she does. Her work will be far neater if she's not avoiding the sight of your eyes while she's sewing."

"Thanks for the tip," Roy answered in neutral tones.

"You could wear a blindfold, or glasses," Scar said in an equally noncommittal murmur.

"I could," Roy said evenly. "And I might, if that's what it takes, but I'd rather not." He changed the subject. "Maybe it's not a good question to ask, but how old do you think Izena is?"

Instead of answering, Scar asked the young surgeon. She turned toward Roy for a moment. "Iya vivten yehrze havv."

Roy frowned. "Did I understand that right? She's only fifteen?"

Rehena approached, and leaned on her cane in front of Roy. "She was born to my first daughter fifteen years ago. She has passed the _kevarkhal_and means to be...a woman who raises the plants for the easing of pain."

"I see." Roy straightened up a bit and spoke formally. "I meant no disrespect. The custom in my country is different, that's all."

"So it is in ours—when there is one who has studied under a teacher, that one will do these things." Rehena paused for a moment to let the weight of that statement sink in, then went on. "But in this, we say that it is good for a young one, one who will see all of us carried away by the River, to heal the wounds made by the ones born before her."

Roy paused a moment, then smiled a little. "Scar taught me the word _sazamuz_, but every time I talk to an Elder I learn more about how little I understand it."

There was a hint of humor in the elderly woman's answer. "You are young, to have learned that you have yet much to learn. Some men wrinkled and dry still believe like children that they know all that is worth knowing."

Roy lowered his head, and let his face show a soft, rueful smile. "There was a time that I thought I knew more about how the world works than almost everyone else in the world." There were people moving closer, talking quietly and shifting around to watch the minor surgery. Roy relaxed his shoulders and back and addressed the aged leader. "Events have pounded it into my head that while I'm an expert at some things, there are a lot of things I don't know and never will. There just isn't time in one human lifetime."

"So it is," Rehena answered. She spoke to someone off to Roy's left, then said in Amestrian, "I would not be rude, son of Amestris, but there is another matter I must see to. Perhaps we will talk again later?"

"Of course." Roy inclined his chin. "I look forward to our next conversation."

The Elder moved off, her cane scratching a little on the stones.

Roy listened to the people restlessly moving closer behind him, then deliberately swept his right foot out as he got his legs under himself and sat back on his heels. The change in his position had the effect he wanted: the Ishbalans fell back a few steps. Roy allowed himself a calming breath, then said softly to Scar, "So what happens now?"

Scar asked the question of Nikai, and a protracted four-way conversation ensued before the vigilante switched back to Amestrian. "The Elders offer you a choice. We can go back to the balcony, with the freedom to come and go as you like, or we can go to the weaver-woman's house."

Roy frowned. "Any recommendations?"

"The balcony is more protected, but there will be more privacy—and more to do to pass the time—at the weaver-woman's house."

"I'd like to talk to the woman before I move in with her," Roy said.

Scar actually chuckled. "The weaver-woman is someone from one of our stories. We say 'the weaver-woman's house' for a...the word 'guesthouse' is close enough."

"I see." Roy avoided putting his blood-smeared hands on his clothing by laying them palms-up on his thighs. "But we're on our own for security at the house?"

"No—there will be at least two _yevarshedaht_on the walls all day and all night. But there is no law against bloodshed outside the temple."

"I guess this doesn't count as 'in the temple', then." Roy waved at the stones.

"It's holy ground. Ask me again later."

"All right, I will. Go ahead and tell them we'll take the house, and gratefully."

Scar translated, then after some more discussion shifted closer to Roy and said, "Izena is washing her hands and cleaning the needle. Do you get dizzy?"

"Not when I can't see or feel the needle," Roy said with humor. "Do you?"

"Only when I've lost too much blood."

Izena said something, and Scar translated. "She's asked me to hold your head still."

"As long as you resist the urge to tear it off," Roy answered. He allowed his guide to take hold of him and pull his hair back out of his face. He closed his eyes as the young surgeon braced her wrist on his forehead, and relaxed even as people crowded close to watch a teenaged girl tend the wounds cut by an Elder into the face of an Amestrian State Alchemist.


	3. Chapter 7

"Here is the gate." Scar set Roy's hand on a smooth, varnished wooden rail. "The latch is to the right." He stepped back, leaving Roy room to find and lift the plain lever holding the gate shut.

Roy opened the gate, pushing it until it ran into something solid near the wall.

"A vine planter," Scar answered before Roy could ask. "There is another like it on the other side of the gate."

A soft scratch and a sense of _someone_ close came from somewhere near the level of Roy's shoulder, and was followed by another, more distant scratch from well above his head. Reflex estimated the ranges to the targets, but Roy only let his fingers tighten on the gate. "Scar—did you hear a scratching noise just now?"

"They are the _yevarshedaht_ and one _ungwaiyar_, here to walk the walls."

"Walk the-" Roy lifted his head, then followed the gate back to its hinges and from there to the top of the wall. Another few scratches announced someone moving away along the top of a wall not much wider than Roy's palm. Roy turned back toward his guide with a bemused grin. "And here I thought you were talking about city walls when you said the warrior-priests walk the walls." He oriented on the man on the wall. "Would it be improper to ask for names and maybe a handshake?"

Scar asked, and the man dropped lightly from wall to planter to ground with only a slight rustle of fabric and a creak of leather. Two other people came down all but noiselessly and approached from Roy's right and rear. The one in front of Roy spoke in a calm baritone.

"His name is Areh, and his tribe is Dihyer-it is a...son tribe...to Ganeha." Scar moved to loom to Roy's right. "Beside you is Ruca, of Navva, and his _ungwaiyar_, Cennet, of Sanayhir. They will be on watch until midnight."

"Ah." Roy bobbed his head a little. "All right. Thank them for me, please."

Scar obeyed, and the men returned to the walls with barely a sound.

Roy closed the gate, then took hold of Scar's left elbow again. The front yard wasn't large, and according to Scar most of the planters had fresh soil but no seedlings. There was a stoop to the front door, which Scar handed Roy onto with a gruff statement that the door latch was to the left.

Roy lifted the latch and stepped into the house. It was a pleasant few degrees cooler than the walled garden outside.

Scar stepped in behind him, and gave Roy a gentle shove. "I'm going to close just the bottom part of the door. Be careful of the top."

"All right." Roy found the wall to his right, and traced his way along it. The stone floor underfoot was just uneven enough to pose a risk of tripping.

Scar finished latching the top half of the door open, turned, and barked, "Stop!" He lunged and grabbed Roy's elbow.

"What?" Roy pulled his arm out of the Ishbalan exile's grip. "Am I about to fall down stairs or something?"

"No, you're about to walk into the lamp on the wall." Scar relaxed. "It's right at the level of your eyes."

Roy carefully explored the wall and the lamp jutting out from it, then stepped carefully around the lamp, putting both hands flat to the wall to search for more lamps. "Thanks for the warning. Anything else I should know about?"

"The steps to the childrens' beds aren't far to your left. They're narrow and stone—I would say they were put in before the city fell. There is no handrail, and I doubt there's anything upstairs but a bed for children and the ladder to the roof."

"Hm." Roy found the steps and climbed a few. "These are steep for me—they'd be far too high for small children."

"The people of Golden Xerxes are said to have been so tall that their hunched old women could see over the heads of men of my people." Scar moved to the open side of the steps. "Doubtless their children could see over your head in their seventh years."

Roy chuckled. "Remind me to tell you what I did to the last man who called me small sometime." He came back down the steps with care. "Why don't you have a look around upstairs and on the roof while I blunder around down here?"

Scar took the first few steps, then paused and said, "Blunder on the stone floor, but stay off the wood—the kitchen—until I show you where the cellar steps and the jars are."

Roy frowned, but obeyed. He followed the wall back to the door, then struck out along the front wall, found another lamp, a large front window with a stone sill and heavy shutters folded back to let in air, a third lamp, then a corner, a wide padded bench along the wall, and a fourth lamp. A door at the end of the bench stood invitingly open, but Roy dutifully turned away from it to finish his exploration of the living room first. Scar's footsteps made the ceiling creak over Roy's head. A table and four chairs, all made of wood with cane seats and top, stood directly in the path of the breezes coming through the open window. Roy ventured out from one of the chairs...and stopped as his sandals came down on a wood floor. He turned toward the steps. "Scar?"

No answer.

Roy ground his teeth, but took a step back and moved toward the steps. "Sca-_oof_!" He grabbed the heavy wood something he'd just run into, recovered his breath, then set himself the job of working out just what he'd found.

He was counting a row of pegs on a long rod when Scar came back downstairs.

"I take it there was something more interesting than a child's bed up there."

"Ruca wanted a word," Scar answered. "Are you planning to take up weaving?"

"Not unless you can teach me how." Roy finished his count, then got up. "I suppose the loom's here because this is called the weaver's house?"

"It's here for the same reason there is a hammer and chisel on the table," Scar answered. "Every woman should have a loom, three goats, and some chickens, and every man should have a hammer and chisel and some fruit trees."

"Basic necessities, huh." Roy delicately avoided knocking a substantial basket of balled thread off the loom bench, and went back to the seam where the stone floor met the wooden one. "Mind acquainting me with the perils of the kitchen?"

"Take two steps to your left—the stove will meet your side. You know enough of fire to understand how hot stone can get and how long it takes to cool."

Roy found the cold stone oven and the grated stove holes to either side of it. He measured its distance to the table and the door to the as yet unexplored room, then measured the massive stone and iron object itself. "I'd think that any architect in this climate would rather cook outside, instead of keeping all the heat indoors."

"During the day, yes. During the night, the heat is welcome—and no one wants to try and cook outdoors in a sandstorm." Scar crossed the floor behind Roy, then turned back toward him. "The front and back windows are large and aligned, so the air from outside will cool the house. I'm standing against the back wall. Step to the right—there is a sink against the walls. The door into the rear garden is here beside me, but before we go out you should know about the cellar." He moved again, and sat down not far from the back wall. "Measure this spot and mark it in your mind. There's a rail around two sides, but it's only enough to hold back a small child, and there is nothing to stop you falling if you take an extra step coming in from the garden."

"A cellar." Roy checked the width of the back window, then the distance to the back door, before reaching until he found Scar's well muscled shoulder. "That's why the floor in here is wood rather than stone."

"Yes." Scar moved away from Roy's touch.

"It can't be a very big cellar, if it's just under the part of the kitchen that isn't that huge stove." Roy found the guard rail and followed it, measuring the distance to the sink and the stove multiple times.

"Big enough to keep the bread starter and other food cool, and hold some other things that aren't needed right now," Scar answered. He stayed put at the top of the cellar stairs until Roy had made another few circuits of the kitchen, mapping out the locations of three more wall lamps, numerous shelved storage jars and baskets, which way the cupboard doors opened, and how the inlet and outlet valves on the sink operated.

Once he'd finished exploring the kitchen, Roy ventured into the other room on the ground floor of the house. It turned out to be a bedroom with a bed wide enough for two, a trunk with the key in the lock, and a tall cupboard with the radio set on top. The rest of their baggage was arrayed against the far wall, moved during their surgery. Behind the house was a roofed porch, a garden featuring several young fruit trees, some more beds ready for planting, a privy shed in the back corner, and a long-dry fountain Scar described as "a fish-man on a rock with three women dancing around him."

Back inside, Roy took a chair and said, "Can I ask what you meant about holy ground, now?"

"Yes." Scar settled on the loom bench. "Would it surprise you to hear that the temple is more for men than for God?"

"I'm not really familiar with your religion, so almost everything about it surprises me." Roy shifted in his chair. "But that does seem to counter the point of having a temple."

"God knew all of us from the instant She formed our souls," Scar said. "Whether that moment was the instant humanity was created or happens with the conception of each baby is something our scholars have argued over for centuries. Either way, all the earth and everything on it belongs to God. For humans to choose a piece of it and declare by ritual that this is God's home is absurd and an insult." He was moving at the loom. "We build the _toz_ and set aside time each day for prayers for our benefit, not God's."

Roy blinked. "All right—what does that have to do with the rule about bloodshed?"

"Humans are easily distracted and prone to scheming against each other," Scar answered. "The ban keeps human minds on the need to listen for God's voice...and no one can claim that fear of attack keeps him from going to pray."

"But the courtyard outside is different?"

"The temple is a place to listen to God and the stories of God. Between the gates and doors is a place to talk of the business of the tribes and to teach the stories of the tribes, as well as the skills every man and woman should know. The stones are laid with solemn oaths on the souls of all to keep the laws and agreements made there." There was a soft snip of scissors, then Scar went on. "You have been judged, and your punishment decided. The blood on the stones seals that."

"I'm condemned to live out my life in darkness," Roy said softly. "Do you really think that will be enough?"

"Anyone who thinks it isn't will have to take it up with the Elders rather than challenging you."

"Not that I'm not glad to hear that, but I'm sure there will be people who won't let this" Roy waved a hand in the direction of his still-numb face "be the end of it."

"No." The loom bench creaked a little. "But the war is over, sealed in Nikai's blood as well as yours and mine. You're the man who speaks for your people, blinded by God and marked by the tribes."

"So they let me off easy." Roy nodded a little to himself, then lifted his head and straightened. "What are you doing?"

"Cutting the thread for the loom."

Roy's tone rose in disbelief. "You weave?"

"I can make plain cloth if I have to." The bench creaked again. "But I won't unless you're told that your household will have to support itself."

"Then why are you setting up the loom?"

There was a moment of bafflement in Scar's pause. "Because the loom should be ready."

Roy pulled his brows together. "For the weaver from the story?"

"Yes..." The scissors snipped again. "It's a man's duty to see to the loom. If he allows it to dry and crack or leaves all the work of threading to his wife, he proves himself lazy and shortsighted."

Roy got up and went to the hefty wooden machine. "I wish I'd brought a camera. No one's going to believe me when I say the Scar of Ishbal did something as domestic as warping a loom."

"Very few of my people would believe you could resist the opportunity to set it on fire to warm your hands," Scar shot back.

Roy frowned, and propped his elbow on the loom's frame. "True. This mission is as much about changing individual perceptions as negotiating international policy."

Scar didn't answer immediately. When he spoke there was a restrained growl under the words. "You and I are raising questions as it is. I saw it in the faces of the people today. If the Flame Alchemist and the Scar of Ishbal can not only sleep under the same roof, but one guide the other, God is drawing a mysterious path."

"Mysterious and dangerous," Roy reached up to rub the back of his neck. "And not easy for any of us."

"We walk the path between lions."

"That's one way to put it." Roy lowered his head and closed his eyes, kneading the taut muscles at the base of his skull. "The problem is that we don't even know how many lions there are."

"I can name at least three," Scar answered. "The most obvious is the lion of war between the tribes and your armies. That one could easily scatter and slaughter everyone remaining in the Ishbal District. The second walks beside the first—the lion of starvation and disease."

"And on our side is the threat that continued warfare with Ishbal will lead to another military dictatorship, which will turn on its own people as soon as it runs out of outsiders to butcher." Roy opened his eyes without lifting his head.

Scar whuffed. "That one doesn't concern me so much."

Roy turned toward his guide and narrowed his eyes. "What's your third lion, then?"

"The lion that hides in the dark brush of time," Scar answered gravely as he snipped another thread. "That lion eats history and wisdom. War means the loss of books, and the memories of those too aged or gentle to survive. Without our books and the wisdom of the Elders, we're only men and women with red eyes, children babbling in the streets without purpose."

Roy raised an eyebrow, but let the implied slight pass. "I guess that makes us the lion tamers who have to pull out the lions' teeth and train them to live like housecats."

"No." Scar's tone roughened. "No, Roy Mustang. A lion is a lion. He will never curl up in a woman's lap or kill the mice in the grain basket. You and I are lions with bloody jaws—we know the ways of hunting and killing. We will never be anyone's cherished pets."

Roy took a breath, then let it out slowly. "We're pretty paradoxical lions. Killers trying to convince the other killers to stop killing."

Scar sighed. "It's a lion's nature to kill. You and I are lions with the souls of men. We defy our own instincts to walk together and to stand against our own kind." He moved, stretching the thread. "If we mean to win, we have to fight without a care for our own lives and honor, then sheathe our claws and bow our heads to the infants who climb on our backs and pull on our tails."

Roy just listened to the other man work for a long moment. "You've got a real poetic streak." He patted the loom bench, shoved the basket of thread down it, and sat. "I guess the best we can do is hope to see a world without lions before we die."

Scar cut another thread. "My people say 'Where there are no lions, there will be wolves.'" He took something from the basket and dropped it into Roy's lap. "Here. You don't need eyes to wind thread."

"Maybe not," Roy agreed. "But I want to know what color the thread is anyway."

Preparing the loom turned into another language lesson as Scar named the myriad of moving parts and gruffly guided Roy through how to pull the threads from the thick beam at the back of the loom through a maze of rods, loops, and frames, then down to a knot tied just so. He paused at intervals to murmur in Ishbalan, catching Roy's hands to stop him until the prayer was finished. It was a time consuming process, made more so by Roy's inability to distinguish one color from another or to tell which heddle to thread next without carefully running his fingers over them with the thread clamped between his lips to avoid tangling it with the others. Still, Roy found himself relaxing into the quiet, slow rhythm of the work. Scar interrupted to correct him when he'd chosen the wrong heddle or twisted one thread around another, but otherwise occupied himself with measuring and cutting more warp threads.

"Enough." Scar cut one more thread. "We can finish later."

"My fingers are getting tired," Roy agreed. He knotted the thread and got up, stepping aside to let Scar up while he flexed his hands.

"Can you feel the cuts on your face yet?"

Roy paused, then gingerly probed his cheeks. "Yes. I'll probably be too sore to talk soon."

"The Elders chose wisely when they decided how to mark you, then."

"Very funny." Roy winced. "So this is more _sazamuz_? A way to remind me of the pain I and my country caused?"

"I doubt it. There is a jar of _ointment_" Scar spoke the word with care "on a shelf in the kitchen."

"I notice you didn't say _which_ shelf."

Scar snorted. "I should sit and let you find it for yourself, but as my wound is also sore, I'll show you mercy." He stepped into the kitchen and took down a jar, which he put into Roy's hands with a tiny wooden paddle. "Use the stick to spread it, unless you want to do without feeling in your fingers."

"I'm not eager to lose another of my senses." Roy found a chair by bumping into it, then sat and took his time with the jar and the paddle. "Which brings to mind another personal question."

Scar pulled out the chair across from Roy and settled into it, waiting.

Roy dabbed ointment onto his aching cheeks, and hissed as the sting drew tears. When the numbness set in he offered the stick to Scar. "If I remember correctly, that scar on your face crosses both your eyes."

"Mm." Scar accepted the paddle, and it clicked softly against the ceramic jar.

"I'd like to know how you can have a scar like that and still have eyes at all, much less perfect eyesight."

Scar sucked in a deep breath, but otherwise made no sound for the minute or two it took for the ointment to take effect. He took another deep breath, then let it out before answering. "I don't know. All I know is that I saw my brother fall, then something hit me in the face. When I woke my head was bandaged and my brother's arm had been exchanged for mine."

"You don't remember the transmutation?"

"No." Scar put the stopper in the jar and got up. He went into the kitchen and put the jar back on its shelf, then reluctantly went on. "But I've seen my brother in my nightmares. He has no arm and no eyes, but he smiles at me and tells me not to be afraid. Then he walks into a black gate and vanishes."

"A black gate..." Roy trailed off. "Scar...that was almost certainly _the_ Gate."

"Does it matter?" There was restrained pain in the words.

"Maybe not." Roy turned his face back toward the table. "He was a brave man, first to defy your laws against alchemy and then to barter with the Gate."

"He understood what he read, and he heard God clearly despite the roars of the tanks and the screams of the children." Scar paused by the kitchen counter. "He gave me his notebook that day. He said that whatever happened, his work had to be passed on. I was a trained warrior—he trusted me to survive even if he didn't."

"And you did," Roy said softly. "From what I've been told, without that notebook, and you to decipher it, we wouldn't just have lost the battle, we wouldn't have known there was something to fight until it was too late. So everyone in Amestris owes you and your brother everything." One corner of his mouth twisted up in a bitter smile. "I can think of some people who won't be happy to hear that."

"Don't tell them, then," Scar said roughly. "I have no need for worship." He closed a cupboard with a loud thunk.

"Good, because you're not likely to get any," Roy answered with an edge. He got up and crossed into the kitchen, his hand out in front of himself to find the oven before he ran into it. "I'm hungry. What do we have on hand for lunch?"

Instead of answering, Scar took something from a basket and something else from a shelf.

Roy followed. "What are you doing?"

"I haven't had a fresh _igran_ in years."

"A what?"

"I don't know your word for it." Scar took his igran to the table and set something on it. "It's a fruit half the size of your palm."

"Sounds interesting. Is there another one?"

"There's an entire basket of them." There was a strange hint of longing in Scar's tone. He returned to the kitchen, and a moment later put a smooth, cool oblong into Roy's hand. "Peel it like an apple, then slice it and put some of the spice on it." He settled into a chair.

Roy turned the fruit in his hands, finding the handle of the paring knife sheathed in it, then hesitantly found his way to a chair. He pulled the knife out of the igran, then sniffed thoughtfully. "I'm not familiar with this. You said _eekrann_?"

"_Igran_. Yes." Scar settled back in his chair. "When I was a child my father told me the peel would sharpen my eyes, the seed would strengthen my bones, and the rest would give me the energy to make good use of both."

Roy pried a fragment of the peel away. "Do you spice the peel, or just the inside?"

"Do as you like."

Roy took his time cutting the first piece of the peel, then chewing it thoughtfully. "Strange. This reminds me of something I've had before, but I can't place what." He took another piece. "What else do we have on hand?"

"Enough for two days. Maybe three." There was a muted ripping sound as Scar peeled more of the igran's skin away. "More will be brought as you ask for it. Now that the Elders have named you the emissary of your people, you area guest of the tribes."

"Do you think they'd give us some strong soap?" Roy waved in the direction of his chest. "My clothes need more than the soak-and-wring treatment."

"There's a cake to wash the body and another to wash everything else above the washtub."

"What washtub?"

"The tub on the porch...I forgot you couldn't see it."

"I'm glad you remembered to tell me about it now—I'd hate to find it by falling into it." Roy took a moment to spice a piece of the fruit in his hands then roll the flavor around in his mouth. "Can we bring it in after lunch? I'm suddenly looking forward to a bath without an audience."

"It would have to come in through the window, and once you'd finished your bath you'd have to help me take it out again, then clean the water off the floor. By the time we'd finished you'd need to wash again."

"You're not suggesting I go from exposing myself to you and a few married men who hate my guts to exposing myself to a whole town that hates my guts...?"

"Are you really so afraid of your own body?"

"What?" Roy set his hands on the table and frowned at his companion. "It's not fear. I just don't like having to display myself every time I bathe."

"And that is what makes our children wonder whether the camp stories are true." A touch of amusement colored Scar's tone as he went on. "You might consider it part of your mission, to let them look and see for themselves."

"See what for themselves?"

"When I was a child I believed that the men of the East had scales like fish covering their soft bellies, and the men of the West wore long coats to hide their monkey tails."

Roy kept his jaw from falling open with effort. "You did not."

"I did. The older children said it was true, and the fact that foreigners hid even from each other to wash seemed to prove it."

Roy took a deep breath, then let it out and shook his head. "I think I'll just let them keep wondering on that, thanks."

They spent the afternoon unpacking and finishing the warping of the loom, then washing their clothes on the back porch before a light supper. Scar took the radio aerial to the roof as night fell.

It was Jean Havoc's voice asking for verification sequences tonight. After Roy had proved his identity, his former lieutenant changed into a different variant of military command code and layered on a set of keywords that relied on the names and relationships of his extensive and active family to obscure the real meaning of the conversation to anyone who didn't have four generations of the Havoc family tree memorized.

"Kat asked if you could bring her some lump blue dye and a couple pouches of green. She's got another commission from that rich lady." _The Major General's split up her troops. Two companies on trains headed north. We're not sure where the others are going yet._

"Did she say how much she wants and when she wants it?" _How many groups, and when did they start moving?_

"You know Kat—she likes to have plenty to spare. She's had me up to my elbows in wool and red dye for the past four days." _Three surveying and engineering teams moved out this morning. The regular troops are packing for a long overland march._

Roy made himself chuckle. "I'll send you some soap to take the stains off your fingers—and the stink of tobacco out of your clothes." _Stay __down__ and clean. Don't risk yourselves for fine details._ "How's Adrian's business doing?" _Any news from General Grumman?_

"Would you believe he had not one but two mares foal twins? Two colts and two fillies, all on the small side but frisky as puppies. One of the ladies looks fast already." _He says the Investigations department is clear, and they've got the worst offenders among the officers under control. He's got eyes on the Major General, too—we're in touch with his people._

"Your little brother's as much of a wonder-worker as you are. I have high hopes for those new additions." _Tell him thanks for the update. Don't assume he caught them all, though._ "As it turns out, I've come across some stock and dealers he might be interested in out here." _Has anyone given orders to start pulling the troops out of Ishbal?_

"Like what?" _Nothing solid yet._

"Like some Xingese long-distance ponies and a small herd of Drachman Black draft horses. The drafts are a little skinny and their coats need work, but I think Adrian could get some good foals out of them." _Find out. If no one's been given orders to move tell Grumman I asked him to pull out at least the heavy artillery stationed in the northwestern quarter._

"Are we talking your money or his?" _Are you under pressure?_

"Mine. Your brother's been a good investment so far, so I'm sure he can do a lot better than just nursing these animals back to health." _Not yet, but I will be soon. I need to give these people something more concrete than words._

"Buy 'em then," Jean said. "Tell me how many you're bringing us tomorrow, and I'll tell Adrian how many stalls he'll need." _We'll take care of it._ "What about the normal trade? How's business?" _Any other news?_

"You know what they say—patience, persistence, and a pretty girl behind the counter." _The Elders made their move today. It came out better than I expected._ He gave Havoc the outlines of the story in a vivid narrative of how difficult it had been to first haggle for various goods, then find seaworthy ships and sober crews to take his purchases across the Pucciani Sea. Scar went from standing in the doorway to half-sitting on the wide windowsill, and his bemused curiosity strengthened in intensity the longer Roy talked. By the time Roy turned off the radio and set the headset into its nest, he could _feel_ the Ishbalan's expectant stare boring into his head. Roy went about the small task of tidying up. "Do you think it's safe to leave the wire out?"

"It should be—but 'should' won't repair a broken wire." Scar went out the window and returned a few minutes later with the wire coiled neatly in one hand.

Roy relented as he wound the antenna wire back onto its spool. "I told Havoc the Elders have agreed to end the fighting, and he passed along some news that worries me."

"What news?"

"The Major General's moving her troops, but neither she nor Grumman is pulling troops out of Ishbal yet."

"The Elders haven't yet asked you to send the army home."

"No—but _I_ asked more than a week ago." Roy traced along the wire with his fingers, pensive. "No one's said anything about that request since. I know they wouldn't have forgotten something like that. That leaves two possible explanations, and I don't like either of them."

"Only two?"

Roy nodded, his face grim. "Either they don't dare tell me what's gone wrong over a radio link, or," he reeled in the last of the antenna with a snap "I don't have the support I thought I did." 


	4. Chapter 8

Scar guided Roy to the latrine shed and back, then gruffly refused the other half of the bed and retreated upstairs with his bedroll. Roy didn't argue, and sprawled out to take up as much of the bed as he could before he fell asleep.

The following morning felt almost decadent. He woke in a bed and had breakfast sitting at a table for the first time in weeks. After some argument about the logic and possible religious implications of Amestrian body modesty, he and Scar compromised. The bathtub stayed outdoors on the porch, but was curtained off from anyone looking for tails and other mythical body parts by Roy's traveling blankets and cloak strung over a length of clothesline. The Amestrian emissary luxuriated in the privacy of his bath and the scent of soap coming from his clean and dry clothes. Only one thought spoiled the serenity. Roy raked his fingers through his damp hair, sighed, then opened the valve to let the tub drain and cautiously followed the wall back to the door into the house. "Your turn, Scar."

The Ishbalan got up from the bench against the wall. "I put your typewriter on the table for you."

"Thanks. I take it no one stopped by to say hello or invite us to a black tie ball." Roy lifted an eyebrow toward his guide as he took his time finding his way through the kitchen toward the table.

Scar snorted. "Ties are an Amestrian idea—and not a good one." He brushed by the foreigner. "If you'll have any guests today, they'll likely come in the late afternoon before the evening prayers."

"Good." Roy grimaced and poked his cheeks with delicate fingertips. "Maybe I won't be too sore to smile by then."

"The ointment is beside the typewriter. You might ask for more of it, if you have the chance. It takes time to make."

Roy nodded, and ignored the sounds of Scar taking his bath just beyond the kitchen window. He found the ointment jar and daubed his sore cheeks, then went to work typing up his notes, checking them with care. The radio call from the night before kept interrupting his train of thought. _The regular troops are packing for a long overland march... __the Investigations department is clear, and they've got the worst offenders among the officers under control. He's got eyes on the Major General...I need to give these people something more concrete than words..._

Roy had his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand when Scar's voice broke into his reverie.

"Are you more afraid of your people or mine?"

Roy straightened up and tracked Scar's step across the kitchen floor. "I have a pretty good idea of where I stand with your people. Until last night I thought I knew the motives of the people back home, too." He turned back toward the wall and frowned at it. "Something's going on and Havoc couldn't tell me about it even in the secondary codes."

Scar went into the bedroom, and his voice came back. "You can ask him tonight, then."

"No—he couldn't tell me directly, but he dropped at least one hint. I just haven't figured out what it is yet."

"Are you sure there is a hint to find?"

"Yes." Roy's frown deepened. "It's like your _sazamuz_. Jean knows how to pass me messages even when he thinks security's been compromised."

"He didn't use a coded phrase to warn you?"

"No." Roy hesitated. "But that's not how he would have done it."

"Hm?"

"A code that hasn't been created yet can't be broken." Roy smiled a little. "It's the last backup. My people and I know each other..." he trailed off and stared into space.

Scar emerged from the bedroom and sat down on the bench to work on something. He said nothing.

The scents of leather and oil drifting on the air finally brought Roy back to himself. "_Damn_, Jean, you must have thrown the exams," he murmured.

"What does that mean?" Scar's voice was warily curious.

Roy jumped, then turned toward Scar's voice. "Scar? What are you doing?"

"Cleaning and oiling our sandals. Why do you say your man 'threw' an exam?"

Roy blinked, then lowered his gaze with a half-smile. "Jean Havoc is _very_ good at playing the amiable country boy. I've known him for years and I still make the mistake of underestimating his intelligence." He rubbed a finger along the edge of the table as he went on. "His enlistment papers show that he left school at fourteen and joined the military at seventeen. When General Grumman assigned him to me, that and his record as a sniper were all I looked at." He shook his head. "He could teach misdirection to an Abasaki torch girl."

Scar's curiosity forced a question past suspicion. "What does that have to do with the trouble in your country?"

Roy turned back toward his friend a little. "The second layer of code Jean used last night is one we came up with to pass information back and forth to each other when we knew we were under surveillance three or four times over. Remembering who was spying on whom and why got pretty complicated-" he grinned a little at the memory "until Jean said it was like keeping track of his family. After that it got a lot easier." He let Scar's short grunt count as an encouraging query, and went on. "Havoc's the third of ten, and both of his parents come from big families. He's not exaggerating by much when he says he's related to everyone in the Piyr Isay juris except the cows. That's plenty of names and relationships, and all of us had heard a lot of stories about them by the time we needed that code. If Jean tells me his little brother Luc's heard something, I know that whatever it is, it's false—because Luc's been deaf since he had brain fever at six."

"So what secret did he pass on last night?" There was a hint of an impatient threat in the question.

Roy hesitated a moment before answering. "The fact that Jean picked that particular code, and then deliberately _didn't_ tell me something...I'm betting he thinks someone in the 'family' can't be trusted anymore."

"Olivia Armstrong?"

"She's my first guess." Roy's brows pulled together as he thought. "General Armstrong's moving her forces, and General Grumman _isn't_ moving his." He frowned. "I hope I'm wrong, but I think they've started wrestling for control of Amestris already. The Major General is going to claim the supply lines to Central and lay siege to the city. Grumman's going to tap the smuggling network and let Olivia defeat herself." He propped his elbow on the table and dug his fingers into the back of his neck. "No—no, that's too simple. Neither of them is stupid enough...dammit, I need more to work with!"

Scar huffed and leaned across the space between them to shove the toe of a sandal into Roy's ribs. "Here. Work while you think, at least you'll accomplish something."

Roy accepted the footwear and the rag Scar put on top of it. "And sometimes quieting the mind with some ordinary job makes it easier to hear the answer that was there all along."

"Mm." Scar sat back. "Listen closely, Flame Alchemist. Sometimes silence _is _the answer." He went back to work.

"I suppose it can be." Roy absently rubbed an oily rag over the tough leather in his hands. "I just hope I get something more concrete this time."

He wasn't surprised that Scar didn't reply.

Scar's guess proved accurate. The tapping on the door came a little more than an hour after lunch. The apostate got up and answered the door before Roy could stop him, then exchanged a few phrases with the man on the doorstep.

"Elder Rehena and some of her household stand at the gate, Emissary," Scar said in measured tones. "So long as she hasn't passed the gate there is no insult if you refuse her the hospitality of your home."

Roy blinked. "My calendar isn't exactly packed, but I appreciate the courtesy." He got up and moved toward Scar, refusing to let himself shuffle. "Is it polite to go and let her in myself?"

"If you like." Scar unlatched the lower half of the door and followed Roy out into the front garden.

Roy took his time finding the edge of the doorstep but didn't take Scar's offered arm. He reached for the gate—then grunted as his knee found the vine planter he'd thought was three steps to his left. He gave himself one irritated exhalation, then straightened and found his way to the gate. "Welcome, _Vrua_ Rehena." He opened the gate and offered his hands across it. "Please come in and make yourself comfortable."

"Thank you, Roy Mustang, sent from Amestris." The Elder's hands closed gently around Roy's for a moment. "Perhaps you will let an old woman lean on your arm to step up to the house."

"Of course." Roy gave her his left elbow and let the elderly woman correct his path back across the courtyard to the door. "Would you and those with you like some tea?"

"If you have the leaves to share," she answered politely. She didn't let go of Roy's arm until she settled into a chair beside Roy's typewriter, leaning her cane against the table edge. "My son Jhzenbah has come with us to guard his mother and his brother's daughter, and to see to any small troubles there may be in this house. My granddaughter Izena has also come. She will see to your wound and the exile's. If you like she will perhaps bake some bread or weave while we talk."

Roy allowed a little mild surprise to show, then turned toward the sounds of other sandaled feet. "_Bazay ag kekzai kaddeelu sa'ij et-da,_ Jzhenbah and Izena. _Vrua,_ I'd appreciate some fresh bread, but-"

"It will be so, then." Rehena spoke to her granddaughter in smooth ripples of words, and the girl answered, then spoke carefully.

"Iy gerdd berd-_bread_-mekin." She stopped to ask her grandmother something. Roy understood only the word _chickens_ of Rehena's answer, then Izena went on. "Tchik-nz eks monn'n mekin."

Roy took a moment to sort through the heavy accent and uncertain grammar, then nodded. "Thank you, Izena. I'm sure your bread will be very good." He offered her an encouraging smile and a lighter tone. "And please thank your chickens for supplying the eggs."

The mild humor won a chuckle from Rehena as she translated and a giggle from Izena. Jzhenbah spoke in quizzical tones, then seated himself on the sill of the front window, where Roy was well within his reach.

Roy took the unsubtle hint and turned away from the Elder, heading for the kitchen. "Scar, where did you say the teapot is again?"

"I'll see to it. Put your typewriter in the bedroom." Scar brushed by behind Roy, then halted as Izena said _ndi_ and gave some sort of order. The exile answered, then his bare feet padded into the kitchen and down the cellar stairs.

Rehena put a hand on the lid of the typewriter case before Roy could pick it up. "Will you wait a moment? Many times I've heard this noisy machine, but I've never seen it myself." Keys clicked but didn't release the typebars as the Elder touched the embossed keys.

"It is loud," Roy allowed. "So far, though, no one's been able to design a quieter model that works reliably, and the stylus and frame uses up even more paper."

The thick paper rustled a little, and Rehena said, "These are not the shapes of Amestrian writing I saw when the army came to my homeland."

"No, ma'am, they're not." Roy settled into the chair in front of the typewriter. "Standard Amestrian letters don't lend themselves to being read by touch, even if they're uniformly carved in stone. You need a lot of shapes to write Amestrian legibly, but touchscript only uses an arc, a straight line, and a dot. Once you can tell those three elements apart and distinguish where they are in relation to each other, you can start learning to read again."

"So the new begins with the learning of old things in new shapes." The elderly woman pushed hard on the carriage release, and the sound of the bell rang off the house's stone walls as the carriage clacked and whirred, advancing the paper. "There is wisdom in this machine. Do you see it?"

Roy shifted his eyes toward the old woman, then deliberately reached up and found the top edge of the half-typed sheet as Scar returned from the cellar and spoke to Izena, who answered and then shooed him out of the kitchen. The exile settled onto the bench behind Roy as the Amestrian ran his fingers along the neat rows of embossed symbols, not trying to read them so much as _see_ what the Elder saw. Rehena waited without impatience, and both Jzhenbah and Scar dropped into the incurious calm that made them all but part of the architecture. Izena's sandals padded softly around the kitchen, a sign of life and a reminder of time as Roy traced the lines of his notes, then followed the paper to the rotors and levers of the typewriter itself. He set his left hand on the keys and hit the carriage release with the right. "I know what I see, _Vrua_." Another press of the release, another loud ding and clatter. He ran his fingers along the featureless paper. "I see nothing. Nothing and no one. I have to go back to find a reference point." He slid his fingertips back to the last partial line of his notes. "I don't know how to go forward until I know where I was."

"You see clearly," Rehena said without irony or mockery. "Perhaps then you will understand why I have brought this and mean to speak with you about it." She took hold of Roy's hand and turned it palm-up, placing something cool and heavy for its size into his palm.

Roy took a sharp breath and closed his hand around the Stone. The potential in it tickled his nerves. Desperation drew the array in fierce bright light in his mind. _Light_. _Color_. The memories were already fading...

The old woman's grip tightened around his wrist, and despair snuffed out the light. He knew his face had given him away, but couldn't bring himself to withdraw behind his practiced mask. He closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment, then slowly relaxed his hold on the Stone that he'd so nobly rejected only weeks ago... "What do you want to know about this, madam?"

She relaxed but didn't let go of him. "This stone was made of my people. Do you or your people know how many souls are trapped in it?"

"No." He moved enough to lay the Stone on the table, not protesting her continued hold on his wrist. "I know that it takes multiple lives just to power the array to forge a Stone. How many lives are inside it...all I can tell you is that it's in the thousands."

Jzhenbah hissed softly and Scar shifted his weight on the bench behind Roy. Rehena sighed, then pushed Roy's hand away from the Stone and set it on the typewriter keys. She let go and picked up the Stone. "I carry whole tribes in my hand. It is a heavy burden, Roy Mustang."

"I know." Roy fingered the keys, then reached up to lever the paper back to the last typed line. "It's enough to break the strongest man."

"Yet what crushes one man can be moved if his sisters make ropes and his brothers come to help with the lifting. My brothers and sister will help me bear this burden." Her tone turned brisk. "Our children and grandchildren must be freed to return to God. How would you do this, if they were your people?"

Roy sucked in a breath. "_Vrua_, the only way I know to do that is to use the Stone's power."

"Perhaps to buy your eyes?"

"No." Roy gritted his teeth and closed his eyes again. "No. I could trade the Stone to the Gate for my sight, but that wouldn't _use_ the Stone."

"What would you do to _use_ this power?"

Roy collected himself. "Elder, I'd use it to heal and rebuild. That kind of power-" he took a deep breath. "A friend of mine—one of my subordinates—suffered a crippling injury because he followed me. He can't walk, but the Stone could restore him. I don't know how much of the Stone's power that would use, but there are always people with illnesses or injuries that modern medicine can't treat."

"That is so among the tribes," Rehena answered soberly. "Yet to use the power so would create more wounds. Do you see this?"

Roy nodded slowly. "No matter how the decisions were made, someone would feel unfairly denied a miracle." He swallowed, feeling the ashes settling into his soul. "People would kill each other just to keep that hope alive."

"There would be war between the tribes, between brother and sister and mother and son. Those who came after would say in bitterness, 'What fools they were!'"

"I'm afraid we'll all be called fools, Elder," Roy answered with a bitter smile of his own. "At least my people will be. Fools who didn't see what was right in front of us until it was almost too late."

"_Varisti_," Jzhenbah growled. His accent added an extra layer of hostility to his words. "Heedless children swinging swords in the temple."

"_Ignorant_ children," Scar answered. "What they know they have learned not from the wisdom of their elders but from suffering the pain of every wrong they committed."

Roy frowned. "Let me remind you that my people weren't the only ones-" He broke off as Rehena tapped the back of his hand.

"They argue falseness, both of them," the Elder said firmly. She said something in Ishbalan to the man on the windowsill, then to Scar. Izena spoke up in uncertain, broken phrases, and Rehena's answer brought protests from both the vigilante and Jzhenbah. The Elder's tone sharpened, and her next statement was delivered in the unmistakable tones of a stern dressing-down. Jzhenbah backed down with a grudging grumble, then repeated himself more respectfully at Rehena's command. The old woman then turned her attention to Scar, who growled an answer that included _Mustang, Elric_, and then _Kimbley._ Jzhenbah sucked air through his teeth and half-drew a sword as Scar spat the name _Kimbley_ a second time. The hatred in the vigilante's voice made Roy's hackles rise and his fingers twitch. Rehena cut off Scar's building tirade with a sharp word, then rapped her knuckles on the wooden lid of Roy's typewriter and delivered a prolonged tongue-lashing emphasized by a second crack of knuckles on wood. The Elder finished her speech with an imperious command, and both Izena and Jzhenbah responded immediately with a rapid phrase and answering taps, Izena's the sharp sound of a spoon on a bowl. Scar made a gruff statement, and Rehena picked up the cane at her side and turned it toward the exile. From Scar's grunt, she'd poked him in the ribs as she chided him. He started to answer, then made a pained sound and reached over to snap his knuckles against the edge of the table with a phrase offered in a submissive tone.

Roy raised his eyebrows. "Would it be impolite to ask what just happened?"

Rehena sniffed and leaned her cane against the edge of the table again. "Please forgive the interruption, Roy, sent from Amestris. The errors of thoughtless _children_ must be corrected as they occur."

"Of course. But I'm curious, _Vrua_. What mistake did you correct?"

"A common enough one. They confused your ignorance of our ways for ignorance of God's ways. It is easy to turn the text the eyes see into the words the mind wants to hear."

"I see." Roy turned toward his guide. "From what Scar's told me, I gather that your sacred books say that your people are supposed to teach the rest of humanity about your god."

"He told you what would excuse his sins, not what God said to the prophets." Rehena sighed. "God speaks to every soul. Those who listen to her words and obey her will are her priests and prophets, no matter the color of their eyes or the words of their prayers. We are to teach those Ishvarra sends to us-" Rehena ignored a sharp hiss from her son and Scar "-without regard for whether they be children or grandmothers, soldiers or scholars, beggars or kings. This is the law." Her knuckles rapped hard against the wooden lid of the typewriter. "It is not for us to question God's choosing."

Roy hesitated, then tapped the knuckles of the first two fingers of his right hand gently on the edge of the table. "That sounds like a difficult law to obey."

"Does a mother need a law to tell her to love her child? Laws are for the hard things, Roy." The Elder's clothes shifted, and she paused for a moment, fiddling with something in her hands, before going on. "So it is with this Stone you have brought to us. The mind thinks of many things, holding these powerful dead in a living hand. We have prayed, and searched the books for guidance. The choices are hard ones."

"Yes, they are." Roy paused, then added, "But I've learned a lot from making hard decisions."

"Such as to offer us the stone more precious than every jewel that ever glittered in the sun. To ride as a blind man beside one who named you an enemy, to bring us our dead. That is much to ask of any human soul, but I think there will be more asked of you than this."

Roy frowned. "How so?"

"I see no further into the future than you do, son of a foreign woman. I know only that Ishvarra chose to send you to us, and her messengers rarely carry only one message."

The Amestrian alchemist hesitated, then said carefully, "Please don't take this as an insult, _Vrua_, but I don't think your god sent me as a messenger. I'm not one of you."

"Do you mean to command God, then?" There was a hint of amusement in the Elder's question.

"Of course not. I just don't want to give any false impressions. I'm not trying to claim any status as some kind of holy courier. I came here to deliver the Stone to you and to negotiate an end to the war between your people and mine. That's all."

"Ah." Rehena's tone gentled. "You believe I spoke to test you for pride. Your words do you credit, young man, but you misunderstand. God's messengers may be men who deny her presence, or children born without tongues to speak, or the mice stealing grain from the fields. God uses who and what pleases her." She patted Roy's forearm. "She sent you to us with the stone, and now we must decide what will seem good in her eyes and in the eyes of our grandchildren's grandchildren." She settled back in her chair, her fingers working and rustling again. "You say that to free the souls in the stone, it must be used."

"That's the only way I know of to destroy a Stone, ma'am." Roy cocked his head toward the old woman's hands. "Would it be impolite to ask what you're doing? I can hear your hands moving."

"Questions are rarely impolite." The Elder draped something over Roy's left hand. "It is—a pretty thing made by making knots in thread just so. This will decorate a _radni_ for a girl to wear when she dances."

Roy picked up the lightweight netting of delicate stitches, and caught himself an instant too late. He lifted his head back up and relaxed his peering eyes, forcing himself to catalog the item in his hands according to the senses he had. It took some time and handling, but he built up an image of the lacy geometric figures and the shape of the larger piece they formed. He laid it carefully on the table. "Thank you for indulging my curiosity. You said you're making this for a girl to wear?"

"Yes. Someone will buy this, and a girl will sew it to her _radni—_your people might say a _kerchief_ or a _scarf—_with beads and bells. Then she will dance with her friends and perhaps with the young men who sing for her." The Elder started work again. "Perhaps you think this is foolish, to spend time and thread making such a thing."

"It's hardly any of my business what you choose to do with your time and resources," Roy answered. He smiled softly. "But I'm glad to hear there are dances and people making dance clothes here."

"'Even in the mines of Aerugo, there were hands to clap and voices to sing.' But I must know, Roy Mustang. If all of the power in this stone you brought to us was released, all of it in one day, or one hour, what would it do?"

"_All_ at once?" Something fluttered from the vicinity of Roy's navel up to his breastbone.

"The longer this—_wrongness—_lives, the more the danger to our people," Rehena said gravely. "Tell me. What would happen?"

Runes and equations whirled, and Roy swallowed his stomach. _Not now, not now!_

"The thought frightens you so?" Rehena's accent strengthened noticeably.

"Yes...please...please excuse me." He took the excuse and braced himself on the table. Shuddered as truths he'd never learned crowded into his brain without regard for his limited human capacity. "Ma'am..._Vrua_..." he licked his lips and took a deep breath. _Remember where you are, who they are...THINK! _"That kind of power—there's no way to be sure what form it would take." The dizziness faded a little, and he chose his words with care. "I can tell you that whatever happened would be earthshaking."

"Could you not channel it, so that it would flow harmlessly like a river?"

The fluttering in Roy's chest abruptly turned to ice and fell into his stomach. He _knew_, and it made sense, but... "I could try. A dozen weapons-class alchemists could try. The odds that they'd be able to hold onto it—you're talking about human souls..." he faltered.

A pause, then a gentle pat of his wrist. "Your face says to me what I need to know. I will tell my brothers and sisters, and we will read and pray more on this." She settled back into the rhythm of her lacework. "But we would ask something of your people, Roy Mustang. Those who died for this stone—we would know their names."

Roy swallowed and relaxed. "I don't know whether the records still exist, but if they do, I'll make sure you get copies of them."

"You will have our thanks, if you give us the answers to questions we have carried in our hearts for many years." Rehena relaxed her formal attitude as the teakettle whistled. "Now perhaps we will drink tea, and talk of smaller things."

"Let me put my typewriter away, then." Roy picked up the lid and settled it into place on top of the machine's case. "I'm still clumsy enough to worry about spilling my tea into everything in reach."

Rehena chuckled a little, then changed to the role of a gracious but unquestioned matriarch as Izena served tea.

"Id iss nao heeyar._..herdink?"_ Izena's fingers probed gently just below Roy's left eye.

The Amestrian emissary deliberately relaxed and focused on picking meaning out of the girl's words. "Yes, it hurts. I've used a lot of the ointment already."

"Nagood, issmush t-menee daying-" Izena stopped, started again. "_Two_. _Not _mer. One monn'n, one b'ver n-_ight_ eetin. Yes?" Her fingers moved to Roy's right cheek.

Roy winced as outraged nerves protested the light pressure. "I'm afraid I don't understand, Izena."

"She means you to know that the ointment should be used once in the morning, and once before the evening meal," Rehena put in. "Use it more than that and it may deaden the skin and make it hang loosely before you have earned your wrinkles."

"Ah." Roy closed his eyes and waited until Izena let go. "Thank you, I'll remember that. How does it look?"

Izena checked with her grandmother before answering carefully. "Keelnah. Stahn._..ndi,"_ she resorted to Rehena again, then repeated the word. "_Ell-tee_. Not zik." She relaxed a little, said something to Scar, who got up without a word and went into the kitchen. "Geerhna fez."

"Jeneefez?" Roy furrowed his brows.

Some of the confidence left Izena's voice. "Gee—_Kreen_. Fehz kreen iz."

The puzzling words abruptly rotated and fell into comprehensible order. "Wait—my face is green? Is that what you meant?"

"Yiss..." the word came out high and small, and Jzhenbah moved closer with a deliberate scratch of his sandals on the stone floor.

"Oh." Roy grinned, then winced again and slowly lifted both bare hands to stroke over his cheeks. "Well, no one ever said medicine was pretty."

"The stain will fade and be gone ten days after you stop putting on the ointment," Rehena said serenely. "But until the cuts are sealed, use the ointment. It will keep sickness from tainting the wound."

Roy nodded. "I will. Since we're talking about it—I think Scar and I will need more of it. He tells me it takes time and skill to mix properly." He lowered and spread his hands. "I'm not sure what would be appropriate to offer, but I'm willing to trade for another jar of the green stuff."

"Izena will do this, and it may be that she will ask for some small thing in trade later," Rehena said warmly. She spoke to the girl, who answered with renewed confidence in her tone. Scar returned from the kitchen carrying the ointment jar, and surrendered it to the young apothecary, who took hold of Roy's chin and deftly swiped the painkiller over the cuts. Roy sucked in a breath and clutched the edge of the table as the sting grew. He heard first Izena, then Rehena speak to Scar. The Ishbalan vigilante answered in gruff tones, but grunted and sat down beside Roy.

Numbness set in, and Roy sighed in relief, then turned toward Rehena's voice. "Elder, am I right to guess that you and Izena are looking at Scar's cut?"

"You speak rightly," the old woman answered.

Roy flashed a smile her direction. "Is his face green too?"

Izena tittered a little. "_Kreen_. Yes."

"Good—I'd hate to be the only one looking ridiculous."

"You're cruel, Roy Mustang," Scar answered with that barely-there lilt that signaled humor in him. "You force me to see you grass-stained like an Utar shaman, but deny me the vengeance of repaying you in kind."

Roy took the opening and drawled, "You forget that I've seen you in full daylight, and wearing a _yellow_ coat. Given that I'm never going to be able to replace _that_ image with a few pretty girls or even some ugly horses, I'd say we're even."

Rehena laughed. "I begin to understand why you were sent to us, Roy."

Roy mock preened. "Because I make green cheeks look good?"

Rehena laughed again, then said gently, "Because there is more wisdom in you than you perhaps know or want seen. It will reveal itself with time, as God chooses."

Something tightened in Roy's gut, but he spoke lightly. "I'll take that as a compliment, _Vrua_." He changed the subject and kept up the chatter while another part of his mind worked in one of the darker recesses of his soul.

The guests stayed through a supper deftly cooked by Izena and her grandmother, the Elder describing the recipe and preparation techniques and translating her granddaughter's occasional comments. Jzhenbah inspected the house and loom while the food cooked, then found a piece of rope in the cellar and made a minimal barricade of sorts across the top of the basement stairs. Roy and his guests ate at the table, leaving Scar to sit on the bench with his plate and eat in silence. Rehena and her family left a little before the evening prayers, leaving the dishes clean and three loaves of fresh bread in the kitchen.

Roy sank into a chair with a deep sigh. "Well, Scar, what do you think?"

"I think Jzhenbah was surprised."

Roy blinked. "Why? Did he actually expect me to attack an Elder and a fifteen-year-old girl?"

"No, but most of your people consider us 'dirty fanatics living a thousand years in the past'," Scar answered drily. "Even those who don't say it directly show it in a hundred small ways. Jzhenbah expected that from you."

"I got the impression he doesn't agree with the Elders' decision to talk to me," Roy said.

"He isn't sure of your sincerity." Scar hesitated, then took a breath. "There are those who won't ever believe you and your country aren't drawing us into another trap. Most want to accept this as the end of the bloodshed, and that your people will leave our lands, but history warns against trusting blindly."

Roy nodded. "He took a risk letting his mother and niece come here at all, if he wasn't sure of me."

Scar whuffed. "You're thinking like an Amestrian. Jzhenbah is a _yevarshedaht_, but Rehena is _Vrua_. Likely he advised her to call you to the temple."

"Then she overrode him and brought him with her as her bodyguard." Roy straightened up in his chair. "More _sazamuz_." He grinned ruefully. "And here I thought that once the discussion of the Stone was over we were just getting to know each other over a little nursing and a good meal."

"You were. You were simply serving more purposes than you thought."

"Do you think that's what she meant when she said there's more wisdom in me than I'm aware of?"

"What did _you_ think she meant, when you heard it?" When Roy didn't answer, Scar lowered his voice and prodded, "You were afraid she'd tricked a secret out of you."

"She was fishing, and she got me to take the bait," Roy growled. "She didn't land me, though."

"She knows you're protecting something important. Something about the Stone and alchemy." Scar pulled out the chair beside Roy and leaned close. "I know that it doesn't take a dozen State Alchemists to destroy a Stone, but I held my tongue. Now I want to know—what do you want the Elders to do with that power?"

Roy took a breath, then slowly let it out and lowered his chin and his voice. "I exaggerated the danger because I don't want any more blood on my hands."

Scar tensed. "And _there_ is the arrogance Jzhenbah was waiting to hear."

"It's not arrogance to tell an old woman that the pretty stone she bought in the market is in fact a bomb."

"It's arrogant to assume she's never seen or heard of a bomb," Scar answered curtly.

"Scar..." Roy ground the heel of one hand against his forehead. "I'll grant that you and your people have been on the receiving end of a lot of destructive alchemy, but-"

"But your people believe that God forbids us the power of alchemy, so we are children reaching into the fire and you are the parents pulling us away." Scar got to his feet and went to the front window. "You believe it so thoroughly that you overlook the evidence standing right in front of you."

"We _believe?" _Roy blinked, opened his mouth, then shut it and frowned. "I thought you were the only Ishbalan alchemist."

Scar pulled the front shutters closed and latched them with a firm click. "You begin to ask the right questions."

Roy followed the sound of his guide's motion. "You told me your tattoos were designed by your brother."

"Yes."

"And he was a historian." Roy closed his eyes and searched his memory. "He saw the truth behind truths before anyone else in Amestris or Ishbal."

"Mm. Ask yourself, alchemist—how is it that a primitive huddling in his cave looked and understood years before your advanced, enlightened people did?" Sarcasm warred with scorn in Scar's tone as he shut the top half of the door. "I killed sixteen of the prized war alchemists of Amestris. Have you asked yourself how I did?"

"I'd assumed it was because you had the training of a warrior-priest and the intelligence to wait for the right moment to make your move, as well as your alchemy," Roy answered with asperity. He opened his eyes and got up even as Scar crossed the floor toward the kitchen window. "Which reminds me of a question I've never heard a good answer for." He intercepted Scar and got between him and the window. "The first time we met, you recognized my name. You tracked down and murdered State Alchemists all over the country." He lowered his brows. "How did you know our names and where to find us?"

Scar stepped into Roy's personal space and loomed, but the Amestrian set his jaw and stood his ground, aiming his glare toward the Ishbalan's eyes.

Scar let the silence stretch, then put one hand on Roy's shoulder and pushed him aside.

"I'm not going to let silence be the answer to this one, Scar," Roy stated.

"You have the pieces you need in front of you. Put them together for yourself, blind man." Scar's disdain added a sharp edge to the taunt.

Roy let his temper seethe for a moment, then banked it and crossed the kitchen in two steps. His estimate wasn't far off—he punched Scar in the shoulder blade instead of grabbing his elbow. He corrected and dug his fingers into his guide's bicep. "That's what I'm doing," he hissed. "You're the key to this puzzle, so I'm working out where you fit first. But as you just pointed out, I'm blind, so I can't copy those arrays and pick through your brother's notes to see what I'm working with. So I have to either ask you questions or transmute the ink in your tattoos to something I can see with my fingers, which I guarantee you won't be painless."

A soft thump on the back porch was followed by a sharp voice speaking rapid Ishbalan. Scar answered in hard tones.

"Tell him we'll settle it between ourselves," Roy growled.

"He would side with you, fool." Scar exchanged a few words with the sentry, then shrugged off Roy's hold. "Elahi has words for me. Cool your fires and think." He swung through the window, then the porch roof squeaked, just once.

"Dammit, _Scar!_" Roy followed only as far as the porch rail. He paused to listen for voices or feet, but nothing moved and no one spoke. The Amestrian emissary considered clapping his hands and expressing his irritation in explosive terms, then ground his teeth and settled for a hard slam of one hand on the indifferent porch pillar. He stormed back into the house and finished shuttering the windows, latching them firmly before settling down on the loom bench to pick at the threads and brood.

On the roof above, two figures crouched atop the narrow wall that defined the back edge of the house, their silhouettes cast in sharp relief by the sinking sun. True night fell and the gibbous moon rose as low words brushed back and forth in the cooling air. Finally one of the two stood to his full height and turned toward the back garden.

"What will you do?" the other said, rising with the same smooth power.

"Wait," the first answered.

"You will have to choose, brother."

"No." The first's harsh words carried into the street beyond the front gate. "My choices have been made. Tell them to look me in the face before they act." He turned to look back at the other man. "Tell them, and pray for all of us." The moon silvered his white hair and touched the ridge of the new wound slashed through the old scar.


	5. Chapter 9

The door to the back porch thunked against its closed latch lever, then an irritated grunt came through it. Roy Mustang turned his face toward the sound, but stayed at the table, idly pushing a loop of thread into a narrow diamond shape, then adding a lopsided circle. After a moment, the door _banged _twice in quick succession and opened. Footsteps went down the cellar stairs.

"Scar?" Roy dropped one hand to the gloves tucked into his belt.

No answer.

Roy's eyes narrowed, and he got up, tugging on his gloves. He found his way to the head of the cellar steps, set his fingers, and waited.

Sandals scuffed on the stone cellar floor, then started to climb the steps. "If you kill me you'll never have answers to your questions," Scar said in guarded tones.

"Don't insult me." Roy narrowed his eyes. "What did your friend have to say?"

"He's not a friend. He carried words from some of my mother's tribe. What do you not want the Elders to know?"

"Trust goes two ways." Roy stepped back, then deliberately took his gloves off and turned his back, heading back toward the table.

Scar didn't answer. He moved around the kitchen for a moment, then came to the table and set something on it. "You would do well to wind that thread and go to bed."

"Don't worry, I won't leave it out on the table," Roy said curtly. He pulled another arm's-length of thread from the ball and stretched it out on the table.

Scar grunted, but didn't comment further. Instead he worked on something wooden, the fibers giving with easily-identifiable ripping sounds and adding a scent of fresh shavings to the tense air.

Roy looped the thread into the interlocked geometry of ancient alchemy while he brooded, but finally gave in to the curiosity distracting his scientific mind and reached toward the sound of Scar's work.

The Ishbalan let Roy's fingers touch the edge of the thick wooden panel, then gave a warning with a sharp inhalation an instant before a tool slammed into the wood between Roy's first and second fingers.

Roy jerked his hand back with a sharp hiss. "I take it this is related to what you and Elahi talked about." He set his face and reached forward again.

"That is my concern, not yours." Scar allowed Roy to touch the chisel stuck in the edge of the board, then wrenched it free and pushed Roy's hand away.

The emissary frowned. "You said he told you something about your tribe."

"They aren't _my_ tribe." The forced tension in the words belied the growl.

"Fine. What did not-your-tribe have to say?"

"There are some among them who haven't forgotten who I was to them before the State Alchemists came. Leave it be, alchemist."

"Ah." Roy relaxed a little. "You could have told me that to begin with."

"I expected you to trust me. There are things that aren't your business, Roy."

"Fine—let's talk about something that _is_ my business," Roy lifted his chin. "How did you know the names of the State Alchemists, and where to find them?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

"It's conceivable that you could have learned the names and titles of a few of us by asking around in the slums. Nor is it hard to find uniformed military officers near a military base. That explains some of your kills. It _doesn't_ explain how you found the Obsidian and Green Lion Alchemists. Obsidian lived in an abandoned quartz mine over a hundred miles from the nearest town, and the Green Lion was under cover as a monk in one of the western mountain cults. You couldn't have just stumbled across them. So—you knew, and-"

_"Let be, Roy Mustang_," Scar snapped. "My past is mine. Think of the Elders and the Stone or your people in Central. It's past time for you to talk to them." He got up and stalked up the stairs, taking the mysterious board and tools with him.

After a long moment of carefully dispassionate consideration, Roy wound up the thread, placed it gently back in its basket, then went to set up the radio.

Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist, Emissary of Amestris, fished for the ground with one foot, then yelped as his right elbow gave way and he fell. It wasn't much of a drop, only two feet or so. Roy landed hard on his rump, cursed more out of embarrassment than pain, then got up and dusted himself off before bending to pick up the coiled antenna wire. The reception wouldn't be very good, with the wire wrapped around the side of the house and wound around the porch rail, but it was the best Roy could do without risking either Scar's sour temper or a climb to a roof he couldn't see. He stepped carefully along the wall of the house, aware that Elahi and whoever else was on sentry duty was probably watching in the silence above his head. He looped the antenna wire around a porch pillar, then made his way to the back steps with what he hoped looked more like a dignified slow march than blind fumbling. Fortunately, Scar hadn't locked the door—the latch lifted easily. Roy slipped through the door, closed and locked it, then followed the back wall until he ran into the sink, well away from the hazard of the cellar steps. He picked his way into the bedroom, then cranked the radio battery with all of his frustration behind it. He put the headphones on, then took a few deep breaths to steady himself before flipping the power switch.

His first call won no answer. He counted a measured three hundred, and tried again in a different code set. No reply. Four hundred, and a tighter code. Silence.

He'd counted to seven hundred. Roy Mustang licked his lips and spoke again into the hiss of the empty airwaves. "Quicksilver. Quicksilver. Isn't that ring heavy?"

The response came back in a female voice with a quaver noticeable even through the static. "Rings and circles weigh the same. The wheels turn when you push them."

Roy caught himself with her name balanced on his tongue. "Which way did the snoopy guys go?" _What kind of trouble are my people in? _It was silly, two bright young cadets stuck on sentry duty with nothing else to do...

"To the southwest with the flying rabbit. The ladies-" Gracia Hughes paused, almost certainly searching for the right words in a code that had been created as a game. "The ladies there dance in their underwear." _The other side's on to us. Your friends will call after midnight. _So silly, but it could say what needed to be said.

"I'll play the piano, you shine the spotlight." _Go to ground, I can handle this._

"I'll take two of them home with me and give them souvenirs to remember me by." _I'm leaving tonight, and I won't be back for a while._

Roy winced. They'd made it up when they were young and horny, and it _hurt_. "The rabbit's ears make up for not having balls. Your girls will fight over my boys." _Do what you have to, I'll take the punishment._

"Don't worry about me," Gracia said, dropping the code entirely. "You have work to do. Don't lose this one, Quicksilver." The radio crackled as she shut off her radio set.

Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist, set down the microphone, then propped his elbows on his knees and pressed his palms together while the empty static hissed and popped in his ears.

He'd drifted into a semi-doze, slouched back in the chair with the headset around his neck, when a noticeable scratching sound and the sense of _presence_ brought him awake all at once with his hands pressed together and his eyes reflexively wide and trying to see the threat-

"Calm, Roy Mustang," the intruder said in a heavy accent. "I am Elahi. I carry the rope for the radio to you." Something touched Roy's knee.

"Rope—oh." Roy took the coiled antenna. "Thank you, Elahi." He thought a moment, then said carefully, "I'll be stringing it again later tonight. My people told me they'd have more to tell me two or three hours from now. I'll take it down, so you don't have to do it twice in one night."

Elahi answered in a disapproving tone. "Exile should this do."

Roy sat up in the chair, wary. "He's gone to bed, so I thought I'd let him sleep."

The warrior-priest grunted. "He is not a boy. He is...this work is for him to do for you."

"Yes—but he's also a friend, and I thought I'd let him sleep." Roy deliberately lifted an eyebrow and tugged one corner of his mouth down into the start of a frown. "Is that a problem?"

"He is yours," Elahi said firmly. "_Exile_." There was a tinge of regret in the word. "He is stone in head. Tough—_stubborn_. Always."

Roy turned toward the _yevarshedaht_. "Yes, he is." He relaxed his face into a small smile. "But then, so am I. We've had to be, living in my country."

"Many things have grown different." Elahi told him. "Our people have grown different. He does not want this, but so is this." His tone went grim. "Say him—say it _to_ him. Say it to him he isnot only one who can speak you people_—_to my people. Remember to him he is wise slave. _Your_ slave, under your hand and your name."

Roy blinked. "Why not tell him that yourself?"

"He is stone in the head," Elahi repeated. "Stubborn. But not stupid_._ Put your hand on his head, tell him." He took the antenna. "I will take the rope to the roof." He gave Roy the courtesy of a soft grunt as he went over the windowsill.

"Wait—Elahi!" Roy took a step toward the window, then stopped and fumbled until he found the chair. "That must be part of the warrior-priest curriculum. Talk in riddles and never use a door when there's a window handy." He sat and folded his arms across his chest, lowering his head and closing his eyes. He kept his body deliberately still as his thoughts sped up, picking up scraps of emotion and tangled skeins of intuition as they whirled like the dust devils of Ishbal.

Voices spoke in his memory. _"He's a warrior-priest, Roy. Has to be, otherwise we'd have caught him by now." "That doesn't explain how he learned alchemy." "Or why. I guess if we want to know we have to take him alive, and __that__ won't be easy." _Hughes' voice faded into the past and was replaced by another.

_ "My __brother believed he could defend our people by learning the ancient powers our ancestors used to defend themselves. It would further disgrace the memory of my family among the tribes, if they knew the full extent of what he did._"

A third voice, creaking with age. _"We must be the ones to break the chain of a hand for a hand, a life for a life, a city for a city, lest all the blood in the world spill out and turn the River red for the rest of time." _

_Blood—the blood of a boy slumped dead over a long-obsolete rifle...the blood of his friend spattered in a plain, unremarkable phone booth...her blood running across the concrete floor while her eyes glared and a madman taunted him...the flash of light and his own shattering scream as Pride usurped his power and forced him..._

Another aged voice, gently pushing the memories back into the past. _"Because there is more wisdom in you than you perhaps know or want seen. It will reveal itself with time, as God chooses." _

"Roy." Someone who claimed to have no name spoke, too loud and too near. Roy jumped in the chair.

"Scar? What are you doing up?"

"I wasn't asleep," the Ishbalan answered. "You shouted, so I came to see why."

"Just a dream," Roy said, firmly refocusing on the present and the man behind him. He turned in the chair and straightened, aiming his best demanding look toward the Ishbalan. "What's your name?"

"Is 'Scar' too difficult to remember, when you can't see my face?" The vigilante's quizzical tone ignored the authority Roy was trying to project.

"Is there a reason why you can't satisfy my curiosity?"

"Yes." The word thudded down on the question.

"All right, what's the reason?"

"That is something else that's none of your business."

Roy narrowed his eyes. "Until tonight I would have let it go at that. But you and Elahi talked about something important—he came down to talk to me and called you 'stone in the head' stubborn. He told me to remind you that you're allowed to stay here only because you're working for me—and that you're not the only one who can translate for me."

Scar hesitated, then let out a long frustrated breath. "Elahi was a friend, once. What he said was a warning."

"So I gathered. But who was he warning you about?" Roy got up and straddled the chair, facing his guide. "Something is dangerous enough to make an Ishbalan warrior-priest go through an _Amestrian State Alchemist_ to deliver a warning. That _is_ my business, Scar."

Scar didn't answer. Roy relaxed his shoulders and back into complete stillness, and hoped his gaze was fairly close to meeting the other man's eyes. He waited.

Scar finally let out a soft rumble. "I've told you that the tribes don't always agree."

Roy lifted his chin. "Yes, you have."

"Sometimes the people of the tribe and the Elders of the tribe don't agree."

Roy blinked. "Was that what Elahi told you earlier? Is Elder Shan having trouble with her people?"

He'd hit a sore spot. "_All_ of the Elders are having trouble with the people," Scar growled.

"What did he say you should do about it?" Roy pressed.

"You told me yourself. He said I should remember that I am your wise slave."

"Meaning stay out of it. Which means," Roy levelled his tone, "that he thinks you'd get into it. He was giving _me_ a warning through a warning to you. _Sazamuz_."

"Mm." Scar didn't elaborate.

"I didn't exactly need that warning. I know damn well that being formally exiled doesn't change your loyalties." Roy propped one elbow on the back of the chair and rested his chin on his fist. "But Elahi went to the trouble to tell me you've always been stubborn and to drive home the point that you're only here on my word. In other words, he thinks you might threaten my good name among your people. Perhaps by withholding something from me?"

"If you want to know Elahi's thoughts, ask Elahi."

"That's the kind of answer that makes me think Elahi's on to something. What else are you hiding, Scar? I can live without knowing your real name, but I _have_ to know who and what I'm dealing with if I'm going to have any chance of-" He stopped as Scar's steps abruptly left the room. "Scar!"

"Wait at the table," Scar told him in clipped, impatient blows of words. He climbed the steps.

Roy frowned, but got up and moved to a chair by the dining table. Scar came back down the stairs a few moments later, and dropped something onto the table in front of Roy with a clatter. "This is what Elahi warned you about. Learn it, then burn it to ash."

Roy reached for the thing on the table, and furrowed his brows as he touched the wooden board. "This is...?"

"That is like any weapon—it is dangerous only in the wrong hands." Scar's guttural rasp obscured the words.

Roy bent his head over the board, running his hands over it and allowing his sightless eyes to try and find some meaning in the darkness. His fingers skated over something—a rough groove carved into the smooth flat plane. "You could make this go much faster if you gave me a little more explanation."

"That side is the right. The other side is the left. Study it and ask why Elahi warned you of it." Scar turned and left, retreating back upstairs.

Roy opened his mouth, then shut it and followed the carved lines with his fingertips. He found sharp-pointed loops, a shape like a wing-

-a memory flashed to perfect clarity. A dark brown arm marked with even darker lines and lettering-

He turned the board over. "And this is the left..." He relaxed and rubbed his thumb over one of the chiseled grooves, then got up and took the board with him into the bedroom.

He sat with the softly-hissing radio headset around his neck and the board with the patterns of Scar's tattoos in his lap. Roy traced the right-side winged figure again, trying to hold the image of the other lines firm in his mind while adding the complex curves of the wings to it. "Hell of a way to study alchemy," he murmured to himself for the seventh or maybe the hundredth time.

The static hiss gave way to a pattern of clicks, and Roy hurriedly put the headset over his ears and set his fingers to the telegraphy key. It was a nervous Kain Fury tapping out the complex alchemical equation. Roy frowned, working the math and chemistry. He counted the nonsense elements on the fingers of one hand, then sucked in a short breath and answered in clicks nowhere near as fast as his communications officer's. _The auriferous ferret will take the Pleiades into the fourth house and the archer who carries his twenty children in his quiver will hunt and kill the mountain stones._ As an alchemical argument, it was complete gibberish. To Fury, it confirmed Roy's identity and that he wasn't transmitting under any threat. It also asked for a status report.

_Two of General Armstrong's companies turned around and came back to Central,_ Fury answered. _Word is she's looking for spies. Falman's been restricted to Headquarters and the dorms. Hawkeye and Breda are moving the Elrics out of the city. Havoc is here with me—he's going to borrow your old place for a while. _Which meant Jean was working Roy's contacts in the Xingese Quarter.

Roy clenched his jaw. _What about Grumman?_

_He's going along with General Armstrong for now. No word on whether he's going to pull any troops out of Ishbal. He's been moving people and trains—looks like he's getting ready to empty the camps and send the prisoners to the border._

_ That's good, but we've got to get those tanks moving toward the border. The longer they sit there the faster my credibility shrinks. If you don't hear anything by tomorrow start borrowing pens. _This last was an order to forge official documents as necessary.

_Isn't Grumman the one who taught you that trick—sir?_

_ Yes, and he'll see me behind it as soon as he finds out. If he still supports me and this mission he'll at least turn a blind eye. If his plans have changed, it's better we find out now._

_ Do you want us to keep reporting to him?_

_ Yes—but leave him and his people a few dangling threads. See whether they tug on anything in particular. It may be that the General's laying traps for some rats in his own house. _

_Will do. What about you? Any news?_

_ One of the Elders came for dinner, and she asked some questions that made it pretty clear the Ishbalans aren't going to just bury the Stone in the desert or make a holy relic of it. They want to know who from their tribes went into making that Stone, then they're going to let those souls go on to the afterlife in one big push. _

There was a long pause, then an erratic blur of clicking.

_Slow down and try that one again, Fury._

_ Sorry. Jean wants to know if you think they're going to make it a condition in the negotiations that you use the Stone to do what they want._

Roy hissed a little through his teeth. _I'm going to try and convince them to trust me enough that they'll let me handle the transmutation._

Pause, then, _Jean says that's something else wrong with the mind you have._

_ I know what I'm doing. Tell Jean that I'm still not suicidal, I'm trying to ensure that destroying that Stone doesn't cost more lives than making it did. Speaking of alchemy-if you can do it without putting yourselves in danger, I'd like you to borrow some books from the library and get my alchemical notebooks from 1910 and 1911. Get Yeni's __Shamanistic Alchemy__ and the first volume of Paracelsus' __Peregrinatio__. The phrases you're looking for are "the forked tails of the dragon" and "the eyes of the double eagles". I did some research into ancient alchemy in '10 and '11. Somewhere in my notebooks there will be the words "Ndan" and "celia", and probably some partial sections of non-circular arrays. If you can have those handy sometime soon, there are some things I'd like to refresh my memory on._

_ What are you planning to do with the Stone?_

_ For now it's just background research. I'm trying to define my options. Is there anything else for tonight?_

_ Not yet. We'll be on at the usual time tomorrow, but we might be doing dual reports or nested coding, if either of the Generals decides to drop in for a visit._

_ Understood. Stay out of trouble, that's an order._

_ You too—that's a warning._

Roy smiled as he tapped out the end-transmission sequence.

Roy's eyes popped open as his skin began to tingle. He ground his teeth and fought, knowing with a sick certainty that he would lose this time. He couldn't stop it. The unblinking eye stared at him as the merciless onslaught continued despite his pleas. He _saw_ it, knew it more thoroughly and more intimately than he knew his own body and soul. He _felt_ what the price would be and screamed, but it made no difference. He could only stare with tears sliding down his face until the light disappeared-

_"Roy!_" Voices, so many voices calling his name in memory...he lurched in the dark, unseeing and uncertain.

_"Roy!"_ _"Only a nightmare, Roy-boy, roll over and go back to sleep, you have school in the morning." "Dammit, Boss, you wake me up one more time and I'm gonna call the nurses to take you to the psych ward." "Get up, boy. If you want to draw circles on my floor tonight you'll paint my house today." "Time to wake up, Roy, they're gone now. You can say you were here with me—do you want me to blame you for the baby?" "Colonel! Fullmetal's headed your way!" "Outta bed, Roy, we have a whole kitchen to polish."_

"Roy Mustang!" The voice rang in his ears, close and sharp and _now_ with the scent of his breath and a dry night-

-he bolted upright in bed and sucked in a deep, startled breath, digging his fingers into the solidly _real_ flesh of the Scar of Ishbal.

"Roy—do you know me?" The muscle in Scar's forearms tightened reflexively under Roy's grip.

"Scar." The pieces and the voices whirled through his mind. Memory and _now_ tilted- "I don't know your real name. But you have one." It mattered...he almost had it.

"'Scar' is enough. Tell me—who speaks for the tribe of Ganeha?"

"Not yet-" He groped in the dark for the answer, it was _there_-

"Tell me what you see."

"Not _yet_, dammit!" He stiffened his back and reached over the other man's shoulder, stretching to get just his fingertips on the last piece of the truth. The maelstrom howled in too many familiar voices, and those little hands plucked and pulled, but he had the weight and the scent and the voice of the Ishbalan alchemist killer as an anchor- "_There!"_ He had it, pulled the last fact in against his chest-

-and realized just how insane he must look. He abruptly let go of Scar's hair and opened his right hand, using it to push himself away from the vigilante's shoulder. "...sorry."

"Do you know me?" The words were dead level.

"Yes." His ears were buzzing. "You answer to Scar. Because you're exiled." And it _fit._ It was totally insane but it _fit. "_And you've been there but you forgot. That was the price."

"I've what?" The tone dropped half an octave and acquired a note of strain. "Tell me what you see."

"Nothing. I see nothing. I'm blind." He sank back in the tangle of blankets. "That's the price _I_ paid." He went on before Scar could answer. "But I gained something from it. So did you." He waved in the general direction of Scar's right arm. "Or maybe your brother did. That's right. That's why you don't remember. Your brother made the bargain." He sat up again and grabbed for the weapon that had killed sixteen State Alchemists. "This isn't all he got in exchange. You said you've seen him in your dreams, with no eyes and no arm. That was _real_, Scar, you just don't remember."

"_What?_" Scar pulled away. "Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist—"

"I _know_, Scar." Roy hung on to the Ishbalan's wrist. "But I'm not crazy. It's just—it hits me all at once, out of order. According to the Elrics and Mrs. Curtis it happens a lot in the first two or three years after you see the Gate. Oh god, I'm babbling like an idiot." He let go and rubbed his forehead. "Let me think for a minute." He set his hands on his knees and closed his eyes.

Scar waited in ominous silence.

Roy laboriously picked apart the complexities of the seamless whole that had crashed into his head, and strung the pieces on threads of words and math and alchemy. He got it organized, then opened his eyes. "All right. I think I can explain it now. Do you want to ask questions or should I just pick a place and start talking?"

"What is it you think I've forgotten?"

"Ah. All right, let's start there. I think you've forgotten seeing the Gate, Scar."

"Why do you think so?" Scar's even tone said he was still making up his mind about Roy's mental state.

"Because it explains too much _not_ to be right. You were right when you said I had the pieces in front of me. I just wasn't seeing it because as far as I knew everyone who saw the Gate saw it alone, and paid the price alone."

"You're talking nonsense again." Fear weakened the threat in the words.

"No, I'm not. It's just hard to put it into words so someone else can understand it." Roy smiled thinly. "Think of it like trying to explain the sunrise in Xerxes to a blind man."

Scar started to speak, then fell into puzzled silence for a long moment before venturing, "What does the Gate explain?"

"You. Starting with why you can see at all." Roy tapped a finger beside his right eye. "Whatever hit you in the face and left that scar _did_ destroy your eyes. Your brother knew he wouldn't need his, so he gave them to you, along with his arm." He waited, then when Scar didn't speak, he went on in slow, measured phrases. "There's something else that makes me _sure_ I'm right." He patted around until he found the carved board on the foot of the bed. "My people are going to do a little research to confirm it, but unless I'm grossly misreading the forms, this-" he tapped the carved lines "-should have backfired and turned you literally inside out the first time you tried to use it."

Scar's growl sent needle-legged centipedes running down Roy's back. "What are you talking about?"

Roy swallowed, then ran his fingers along one of the carved grooves. "These designs are brilliant—they're a fusion of several schools of ancient theory shaped by modern practice. They have a few flaws, things I'm sure your brother would have noticed and corrected-" he heard his words speeding up and took a moment to reclaim control of himself "-if he'd had time. He would have been fine, testing the designs together. That's why you must have seen the Gate and then forgot. These arrays were designed to be used _together_. With only one of them, and the destruction one at that, you shouldn't have been able to control the energy at all, much less direct it." Roy ran his fingers along the curve of the eagle's wing. "You saw the Gate, Scar, and you used the Gate's 'gift' of arrayless alchemy to close the other half of the circle."


	6. Chapter 10

"You're jumping a wide river, Flame Alchemist," Scar said with an edge.

"I know I am. I also _know_ that I'm right." Roy Mustang ran his hand over his head and tugged on his bangs. Some disconnected part of his mind noticed how much hair slid through his fingers and pointed out that he needed a haircut. It was so ridiculous, all of it, his hair and the nameless Ishbalan and the dreams that weren't dreams and visions too big to fit in the confined space of one human mind... "Gods. No wonder Ed-" he stopped as another blast shattered the fragile landscape of his thoughts.

"What about Ed?" Scar's voice prodded gently...from behind Roy.

"Hm?" Roy turned. "Scar?"

"Yes. Do you remember where we are?" Scar's weight on the bed behind him—when had he moved?

Roy frowned. "Xerxes. And I know how you knew our names." He plunged on before Scar could argue. "Thinking about Ed reminded me. The same thing happened to Al. The same thing." The world tilted and he dug his fingers into the bed against the spinning. It made _sense_ but it was too big, too complicated to put into words...

"Roy." Scar, alchemist and alchemist killer, enemy and ally, the younger brother...his hands closed around Roy's shoulders and tugged him back toward the pillows. "Go back to sleep. It will make sense in the morning."

"No." Roy twisted, but Scar's grip didn't give. Roy grabbed the muscular arm, the image of the tattoos wrapped around that arm clear in his mind—

-_wrapped around-_his train of thought snapped and jerked in another direction. "Scar—the circles. I've been so _blind_."

"You chose that. Go to sleep."

"That's not what I meant." He turned his face toward his guide. "Scar—it's the Gate. It does things to your head." He held on to Scar's arm, anchoring himself against the buffeting of the wind in his mind. "Ed and Al explained it to me, after the first couple times it happened. They helped me convince the doctors I hadn't lost my mind. I-" he stopped as another shock jolted his mind. "But you—you know that already. You must have felt it, before you forgot."

"Go to sleep, Roy Mustang." Scar pushed Roy back into the pillows. "Let your mind rest."

"No." Roy didn't bother struggling, reaching up to massage his forehead and temples instead. "I've got to organize it and either talk or write it out, or I'll lose it."

"Let it go, then." Scar withdrew his hand but stayed put on the edge of the bed. "How I learned what I know hardly matters."

"By itself it's an academic question, and we don't have time for those," Roy agreed wearily. "But that's not all there is to it. Your alchemy is important _now_." He sat up and groped in the dark for the truth and the words to explain it. "That's not right." The world tilted and the words slid out of his reach, taking the fragment of truth with them.

Scar's arm fell against his chest. Or maybe he fell against Scar's arm. He could only hold on, gasping, while the flood receded, leaving him with only the pounding of his heart and the featureless void of his blindness.

"Roy. Do you know me?" The Ishbalan's calm voice rang loud in his ears.

"Scar." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath against the drained emptiness in his soul. "We're here to end the war, and I just had a Gate flashback." He pushed himself upright.

"Better that it happened now than with the tribes watching and listening. Go to sleep."

"Yes." Roy yawned. "Get some rest yourself." He lay back and slept.

They both slept until the growing heat of a desert day woke them. Scar was taking a bath and Roy was sitting on the back porch cautiously shaving himself when a voice spoke up from the foot of the porch steps. Roy startled, and the tip of his straight razor nicked his jaw.

Scar's voice spoke up in sharp Ishbalan, and the newcomer answered in flat tones. His voice sounded youthful and suspicious.

"Scar?" Roy dabbed at the tiny drop of blood welling from the cut. "Who is he, and what does he want?"

"He is Ruca's _ungwaiyar_ Cennet, and he carries a message from the Elders asking you to come to the temple when you are finished with your morning meal and washing." There was disapproval in Scar's words. "I told him that he would be wise to do as his teacher does and scratch with his sandals when he comes near you."

"Ah. I didn't realize that scratching was intentional."

"It's a courtesy. What should I tell Cennet?"

"Tell him I'll be at the fountain outside the temple in an hour—and that I have some questions I'd like to ask the Elders."

Scar translated, and the youngster answered, then turned and left, his sandals scratching loudly on the stones until he jumped up on the wall.

"I get the impression Cennet doesn't like me much," Roy said as he went back to his shaving.

"He is young enough to believe that a man who has done evil once is corrupted forever," Scar said. "He is also foolish enough to believe that goading the lion in his cage shows bravery."

"He hasn't seen any real fighting, then." Roy felt over his face with his fingertips. "On one hand, it's encouraging to know that there are some kids who've grown up without guns in their faces. On the other hand, people who haven't seen a war up close don't realize what starting one will cost them." He found a rough patch and carefully guided the razor over it before going on. "I don't know that I'd call myself a caged lion, though. I'm here of my own free will."

"You hold your temper without so much as baring your fangs to those who poke you with sticks and dangle your food just beyond your reach." Scar got out of the bathtub. "What Cennet and others don't see is that the bars are made of threads you plucked and spun from your own mane."

"I'm going to start adding your metaphors to my notes," Roy told him. "You've got a poet's vision."

There was a thread of pleasure in the apostate's answer. "As you like, Roy Mustang."

Roy washed his hands in the fountain and splashed some of the water on his face. Scar murmured to himself beside Roy, taking his time with the ritual.

People approached from temple courtyard, and a grave male voice spoke.

"Etan offers you shade and tea. It's an eastern courtesy. Three men of his tribe are with him." Scar paused as the Elder went on. "He asks you to trust him to lead you safely across the stones. I wouldn't refuse, if I were you."

"Tell him I accept, then," Roy said. "And say thank you."

Scar rendered that, and Etan stepped in...to Roy's left. The Elder put his right hand on the small of Roy's back and took Roy's left hand in his own, then gave a command to his men, who moved around them as the Elder pushed gently on Roy's back. Scar said something, then grunted.

Roy paused despite the unaccustomed pressure on his back, and turned back toward his guide. "Scar?"

"They were only tying my hands. Go on, Emissary."

Roy frowned. "I'd hoped my word carried more weight than that."

"It has nothing to do with you." There was a warning in Scar's tone. "It's a small thing. Think of your duty to your country."

Roy hesitated for a moment, then let Etan guide him across the courtyard and up the steps to the wide, cool stone porch of the temple. People followed and arranged themselves on and around the steps, most of them saying nothing. Children were chanting rhythmically somewhere nearby and chickens clucked from the city outside. The city went about its daily business as the foreign emissary sat down on the cushion provided for him and accepted a cup of tea.

Someone pushed Scar to his knees on the bare stone beside Roy.

"Are you blindfolded?" Roy asked softly.

"No. Don't make an issue of it, it's a message to others. The Elders are waiting for you to offer the first words."

"Ah." Roy straightened his back. "Good morning, Elders of Ishbal. I have some news from my country concerning your people. General Grumman, one of the leaders backing me, is gathering trains and supplies. He's planning to open the camps and send your people home to their families and their lands."

The announcement brought a blur of voices.

"That's a good thing to say to open the meeting," Scar murmured softly. "You said nothing of this last night."

"I'm taking a gamble," Roy answered equally quietly. "My people said there are signs Grumman's getting ready to put your people on trains and send them to the border. I'm hoping he's planning to reload those trains with Amestrian soldiers for the trip back west, but I'm not going to promise that yet."

The hubbub died down, and Etan spoke in a formal, measured rhythm.

"We are glad to hear that our kinsmen will soon be free," Scar translated. "Perhaps the locomotives have the strength to pull other things that are precious to us as well?"

"The locomotives are very strong, _Admi,"_ Roy answered. "What is it you would like them to bring you?"

"When war came to our lands, the soldiers killed our people and took our horses for themselves. The ones they did not slaughter and eat, they took into your country or behind the walls of their camps in our land. We have taken back some of them, but we would see it as a statement of sincerity to see our horses walking off the same trains that bring our kinsmen home."

Roy's eyebrows rose. "I hadn't considered that, but I'll pass it along to my people. It may be difficult to find those horses, though, after all this time."

"Our horses are not so hard to find among the ponies of the west," Etan answered through Scar. "Their legs are long and fine, their coats gleam like gold, silver, and copper in the sun, and they are the wisest of horses."

"It would please my brothers and sisters of the eastern tribes if the soldiers in our lands packed their camps into the trucks, and left our horses behind for our people," Shan put in.

Someone spoke up from the steps, and Nikai answered. Then he addressed Roy again, still going through Scar for translation. "The words are wise. A thousand horses won't make a man rich, if he has no pastures or fields of grain to feed them." He spoke over a rumbling murmur. "Perhaps you will ask the general Grumman whether he will send all of the trains to the same place, and what he will give the people to carry when they leave your country."

"I'm sure he won't drop them off with nothing but the clothes on their backs," Roy replied. "Maybe your people could help coordinate the return. It would help us help you if we knew where to send the people from each tribe, and what they could use in the way of tools and supplies."

Scar's translation brought another outbreak of chatter. As it went on, Scar leaned down and said quietly, "They're arguing whether or not now is the time to demand the stolen treasures—mostly books and family blankets looted from the temples. Some say that our history and culture are the most precious things we have. Others reply that no one can eat a book or a blanket, and what the people need first are tools and animals to build villages and feed ourselves."

"I don't see why we can't try to round up whatever was taken as well as providing some more practical tools," Roy answered. "I'm not sure how much of it still exists, though, outside some museums."

"Offer the plain tools for now, and make no more promises you may not be able to keep," Scar murmured. "You've already given them much of what they were most likely to ask."

"All of which is just basic reparations," Roy said. "I don't want the Elders to think they won't get their people or their sacred books back if they don't give me exactly what I want." He leveled his brows. "I do intend to ask for some concessions in return, though."

"Such as?"

"Safe passage for caravans crossing the desert to and from Xing, for starters," Roy answered. "That's fairly small."

"Perhaps larger than you think," Scar murmured.

The hubbub faded, and Nikai spoke up again. Scar translated in stately tones. "We will look forward to welcoming our people back to our lands, and we will prepare stables and saddles for our horses. There are two rail stations in the south, close to the ancient river Saia—your people call it _Syr. _If you will send the trains with our people there, we will go and see them and what you have sent with them. We will decide what to do further after the children have found their parents and the grandparents have met their grandchildren."

"I think I can arrange that," Roy said. "Just to make sure we're talking about the same stations—the ones I'm aware of are Ata Dargan and Sarmisay. They're both big enough to handle that much passenger traffic." He rubbed his chin. "They're also several miles west of the border. Let me talk to General Grumman, just so no one on the Amestrian side of the border sees people gathering and thinks they're a threat."

"We have sung enough of our people back to the River," Rehena answered through Scar. "We will counsel the tribes to wait east of the border, and wait in patience just a little longer."

Roy nodded. "I'll check with my people to find out when you can expect the first train to arrive." He paused for Scar's translation, then went on. "There is something else I'd like to discuss, Elders, if it's appropriate."

"We will hear what you will say, Emissary of Amestris," Nikai answered noncommittally through Scar.

"Thank you, _Admi_," Roy cleared his throat. "Unfortunately, yours aren't the only people the previous government of my country made enemies of. It will take years of work to rebuild peaceful relations with Xing, for example. That work would be much easier if your people would agree to let our diplomats pass through your territory."

Murmurs became a rumble that took several calls from the Elders to settle.

"This is not as simple a matter as it perhaps appears, Roy, son of Amestris," Shan told him. "Perhaps you will give us time to speak with our people before we answer your request."

"Of course," Roy said genially.

"Is there something else you would speak of now?" Nikai asked.

"Not right now, _Admi_," Roy answered.

"Then we will go, each to speak to his own people," Nikai said formally.

Roy took that as his cue, and got to his feet. "I'll do that, and give you more details when I have them. Scar, please lead me back to the house."

Scar grunted as he got to his feet. Roy took the exile's elbow and didn't comment on his guide's tied hands. He kept his mouth shut and his head high despite the people gathering around him as he crossed the plaza. Once they were outside the gates, Roy counted carefully to find his sandals sitting on the shelves near the fountain. "Scar, where are your sandals?"

"On the shelf to the right of yours. You can free my hands now—and I would be thankful if you did."

"Not just yet." Roy took down the heavy sandals, and separated left from right, setting each down beside its corresponding foot. Still barefoot himself, he fumbled, then found the loops to tug the knot in the rope around Scar's wrists loose. Before the big Ishbalan could argue, Roy took Scar's right hand in both of his own and worked the fingers, then flexed the wrist. "Your hands must be numb."

Scar sucked in a hissing breath. "Some," he admitted.

Roy firmly kept his attention on Scar, letting the onlookers he sensed nearby watch. "I could do it for you, but I'm sure you'd rather tie your sandals for yourself." He aimed his eyes up from under his brows at the former vigilante and chafed the big hand between his own.

Scar paused, then opened and closed his hand, closing his fingers around Roy's wrist for just an instant. "No man wants to ask another to help him do what a man should do for himself and his family," he agreed. "But there is no shame in accepting a favor from a friend from time to time."

_Thank you, _Roy thought in relief.

Once back in the weaver woman's house, Roy busied himself typing up his notes of the discussion while Scar cleaned the oven and stove. The Amestrian Emissary had his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand while he thought when a scuffing of sandals on the front stoop and a voice speaking his name caught his attention.

"Yes? Who's there?" Roy got up and worked his way around the table toward the door.

"Jzhenbah," Scar answered. "He's come on behalf of his mother Rehena. She asks whether you would honor her table by joining her family for dinner."

Roy's eyebrows shot up. "That's an invitation I didn't expect." He went to the door. "I accept, and please tell your mother I'm looking forward to meeting her family."

"I will carry your words," Jzhenbah answered. He left with another scratch of sandals before Roy could invite him in.

Bemused, Roy turned back toward Scar. "I guess that means we'll eat well tonight," he remarked.

"You will," Scar allowed.

"What?" Roy frowned. "Don't tell me you're going to be eating leftovers in the kitchen or something."

"I won't be there at all," Scar answered with a bitter edge. "I am _dyeboj_. Exiled and not fit to enter the homes of the people."

"How do we get that damned exile status lifted?" Roy demanded. "It's gone beyond getting on my nerves."

"You've brought me here and insisted that I stay as your guide and interpreter. That the Elders allowed it is a message to the tribes as well as to me, " Scar told him bluntly. "They tie my hands, not yours. Some will see that only as a reminder that I am exiled. Others will see that you are free while I am not, and understand that the foreigner is no longer the greatest threat to our people."

Jzhenbah held his arm stiffly and set a pace that nearly forced Roy into a trot to keep up. The warrior-priest had flatly refused to allow Scar to lead Roy to his family's home, and when Scar had backed down with barely a token protest, Roy had decided to take Jzhenbah's elbow and hope the man wouldn't lead him straight into a pit of sharpened stakes.

Jzhenbah finally stopped to open a gate, and led Roy across flagstones to a patio, talking in musical Ishbalan to someone who responded in the tones of a young man. Hinges squeaked, and Jzhenbah stepped up into the coolness of the house. The aged voice of the Elder met him. "I say welcome, Roy Mustang. Will you come and eat with my children and my grandchildren?"

Roy took his hand from Jzhenbah's arm and offered the old woman a bow. "I'd be honored, ma'am."

Rehena tapped her cane a little as she approached, and her cool, knobby hand took Roy's arm. "Come and sit, young guest." She guided him to a basin to wash his hands, then to a seat on a bench at a table considerably larger than the one in the weaver-woman's house. Rehena seated herself to his left with a soft sigh, then spoke. "These are my children and my grandchildren. Beside you sits my third son Samuj, and his wife Nerah is with him. Their children are in the children's rooms-they are too young to eat with a guest. My daughter Zheri is across the table from you, with her sons Yahan and Louka. Jzhenbah sits by Izena and her two brothers Kai and Hezh." She said something in fluid Ishbalan, and was answered by her family, most of the voices sounding dubious at best. Rehena gently touched Roy's wrist and moved something into his reach. "Here are the _fers—_to eat with. We also eat with the hands when the food is not soup. Is it acceptable in your country to eat the flesh of goats?"

"Yes, goat meat is fine." Roy turned toward the rest of the table and made a small seated bow. "_Inksa rose_. I'm honored to meet and share a meal with you." He knew he'd mangled the greeting phrase, but it was reciprocated in murmurs, so he'd at least made himself understood.

Rehena translated that, and there were murmurs from around the table, which wereat least not overtly hostile in tone.Rehena said something further, and two of the people on Roy's side of the table rose and hurried off. The Elder said regally, "We will have goat meat, and chicken meat, with our vegetables and bread."

Roy traced along the sticks Rehena had called _fers _with his fingertips. They were cut square with blunted corners and sanded to almost silken smoothness. "That sounds very good, Vrua, but I'm afraid I'm not familiar with these." He pushed one of the sticks, and found it heavier than he expected.

Rehena spoke to Samuj, who shifted in his seat as he answered. The Elder shifted back into Amestrian. "It is no insult to eat with the hands, Roy Mustang, but if you ask to learn we will show you to hold the _fers_ and turn them."

"Please do that, ma'am. I'm here to learn as well as to negotiate."

"Open your hand, then. Samuj will put the _fers_ in your hand."

Roy obeyed, and let the Ishbalan beside him set the carved wooden sticks into his fingers and awkwardly push his hand through motions that felt like using Xingese chopsticks...until Samuj said something and turned one of the sticks end for end. Puzzled, Roy felt along the length of the stick, and found a spoon on the end. The other stick had a matching small fork.

"The _fers_ are strange to you?" Rehena asked.

Roy bobbed his head, thinking. "I've seen things like this before, but I didn't realize you're supposed to use them together." He turned the spoon back toward his wrist, and measured the length of the sticks extending from between his fingers, setting them to what felt about right as the length of a fork. _You should have thought this through, Mustang_, he chided himself. _You're not going to win any friends missing your food and dropping half your dinner in your lap._ Forks had been enough of a challenge to master without sight to accurately guide food from plate to mouth.

"Your people cut the food at the table, so you must have a knife." Rehena commented. "We say that there should be no knife in the room where people are eating." She paused as her relatives returned and served what smelled like spiced vegetables and roasted chicken. "Perhaps we will speak of small things tonight? The doings of family and friends, rather than the actions of nations?

Roy took a breath and let his professional mask soften into a smile. "Madam Rehena, that would be both a pleasure and a relief."

Rehena's tone warmed a little. "No man or woman can speak always in the voice of the people. Sometimes I am only an old grandmother spinning thread while my grandchildren roll clay balls across the floor." She said something to her family, who answered with a phrase in unison, then tucked into dinner, fers clicking against plates.

Roy cautiously probed his plate until he found something that felt fairly small and manageable...then jabbed himself in the face with it despite his best efforts to track it. There were giggles from the children and softer whuffs of amusement from their parents, then Rehena speaking in rebuke. Roy corrected his mistake and got the morsel into his mouth. It turned out to be a piece of chicken that had been marinated in something with a slight tang he couldn't identify.

The woman across the table made a comment laced with apprehension, and Rehena translated, her voice mild. "Zheri asks you to give her children no attention—they are little boys who are still learning courtesy."

Samuj nudged Roy's elbow and draped a soft woven napkin over it, and Roy blotted the sauce off his face.

"Don't worry, I'm not offended. I just thought that since I know how to handle Xingese chopsticks, I could use your—furss?-without making too much of a mess. I'm afraid I was wrong about that." He pulled a disarming grin. "Are there some of these at the house where I'm staying? I'd like to practice with them."

"There are fers with the cooking spoons," Rehena answered. She said something to her family. "But tonight, all at this table will eat with the hands."

Roy paused, then accepted the gesture as it was most likely meant and laid down the sticks. "Thank you."

"When a guest comes to the house, the people of that house should offer him courtesy as well as a roof and food," the Elder replied. She chewed, and the rest of the family hesitantly went back to eating and murmuring softly to each other, their nervousness charging the air.

"Yes." Roy found another piece of chicken on his plate and put it into his mouth to chew while he cast about for an innocuous subject. "It's good to hear children laughing, even when they're laughing at me. They remind me not to take myself so seriously."

"They remind me to take pleasure in the smell of bread baking and the sound of new chickens in the nest," Rehena said comfortably. "Have you children, young man?

Roy shook his head. "No, Elder, I've never married or had children." The memory of an angry woman's voice accusing him of "siring children like a dog sires puppies" rose in his mind, and he firmly shoved it aside and went on. "I do visit with the young child of my best friend when I can find time. She calls me her uncle."

"Does your friend speak with you on your radio and tell you the small things of home?"

Roy felt his face fall. "No, _Vrua_ Rehena. He died three years ago."

There was a gentle pat on his arm. "May God give peace to the soul of the one you lost, and bless the child with wisdom." Someone else spoke up, and Rehena translated. "Zheri asks whether you mean to marry and become a father in the future."

Roy hesitated. "Maybe. For now I'm concentrating on my duties to my country and the new government."

Rehena translated Roy's answer, then remarked, "Perhaps in time your duties will not be so heavy, if we can calm our peoples."

Roy took another mouthful of his dinner. "That's something I've been thinking about, and trying not to think about at the same time. If I let myself worry about my country's future all day every day I'll never get any sleep."

"It is a large cow in the small barn of the mind, isn't it?" Rehena said. "She is always kicking the walls and calling to be let out."

Roy broke into laughter. "Elder, that's the _perfect_ way of describing it."

A child's voice spoke up, and Rehena translated. "Yahan asks to know if you played games when you were a boy."

Roy smiled in the direction of the boy's voice. "Oh yes. Kids in the neighborhood where I grew up spent a lot of time playing marbles and racing each other everywhere. What kind of games to you play here?"

The answer was lengthy and delivered with gradually building enthusiasm. Another boy's voice joined in, and the two of them got into what sounded like a childish argument over something before Rehena hushed them and explained, "My grandsons play the stick game-to hit a stone in the wall with a stick when the searcher calls, then to run away and hide before he finds them." She went on with affection clear in her tone. "The game is harder for the searcher here in fallen Xerxes, where there are so many stones."

"That sounds like a lot of fun," Roy said. "I hope they won't mind when we make it easier for the searcher by clearing away those fallen stones."

Rehena chuckled. "We are taking them up and setting them one on another when we need another house. In time, perhaps, there will be time for our men to take up the stones of the streets and make them level and easy on the legs of horses and old women."

"I'm going to do everything in my power to bring that day sooner," Roy said fervently. "But here I am again, thinking about big projects."

Rehena's hand patted his arm again. "The cow is a very fat one-or perhaps she carries two calves. Does the meal please you?"

Roy laughed a little. "Or maybe my barn is too small for her. And yes - the food is very good." He popped another morsel into his mouth for emphasis.

Rehena passed that along, and one of the adult women at the table answered. Rehena switched languages again and said, "Nerah thanks you for the kind words."

Roy cast about for something else to talk about. "Do your grandchildren have lots of other children to play and grow up with? Or...maybe that's another question I shouldn't ask." _The stone of the houses glowing red hot and grown men screaming alongside their children..._

_ "_There is no harm in asking questions, Roy Mustang," the Elder said gently. "There are other children to play the stick game and learn the shapes of writing with my grandchildren. My family is blessed-I have fourteen grandchildren to see growing. Some houses have only one or two children, but in time, perhaps when you hold your grandchildren and tell them stories of this time, the streets will again ring all day with the voices of strong, happy little boys and little girls."

"If your people leave any of mine alive to raise children," Jzhenbah muttered at the end of the table.

"Theirs are not the only guilty hands," Rehena said severely. She went on in Ishbalan, and Roy forced himself not to squirm under the pressure in the room. The old woman finally sighed, and said to Roy, "Please forgive my son Jzhenbah, Roy Mustang."

"I don't expect old grudges and fears to disappear overnight," Roy answered, smoothing his face and voice into the calm that hid his feelings behind formal protocol.

The Elder put her cool, dry hand over Roy's and squeezed it firmly. "You are my guest. We fear you, yes, but you have shown your regret and come to ask forgiveness and peace. The war is ending. Now we must learn to sit and talk over a good meal. Does it seem so to you?"

"That's a large part of the reason I came here, Vrua," Roy answered. He turned toward Jzhenbah. "I fear you, Jzhenbah. Not just because you carry that sword and hate my guts, but because if you and I can't learn to at least tolerate each other it'll be at least another generation before anyone can say for sure whether this" he tapped his cheek below the cut Nikai had slashed across his face "really is the last blood of the war." He went back to eating, concentrating on the flavor and texture of the greens and preventing his hands from visibly shaking.

There was silence for a long moment, then Rehena said gravely, "I fear you, Roy Mustang, called the Master of Fire-but you are only one man, with only the time God will give you. I fear more the armies. An army can march ever into the future and trample all under its feet." She took a deep breath, then went on with a little humor. "The cow kicks in her stall again. Perhaps we should simply open the gate and let her out."

"She doesn't seem to want to settle down," Roy agreed. "But letting her out is going to cause even more conflict at your table."

"There will always be conflict," Rehena said calmly. "Men and women and children are meant to share home and table and bed, but they are of different minds and will argue, now and again. That does not say that they should not live together." She tapped the back of his hand with one fingertip. "You came here, blind and alone. You trusted, despite your fears."

"And in exchange you trusted me with your family," Roy answered. "You saw for yourself that even blind and alone, I'm far from helpless, but you invited me to eat with you. So, we both took a risk."

"There is no such thing as a life without risk," Rehena said. "I accept the risk, and pray that God will grant it to me to see your people and mine walking the market together, without their guns or their slings at hand, and the _yevarshedaht_ walking among them with their swords sheathed."

Roy let his eyes close as he lowered his chin. "We share that goal, _Vrua_." He let the watchful silence stretch, then sighed and opened his eyes again. "Someday, maybe I'll bring my friend's daughter here to Golden Xerxes, and see it through her eyes."

"May her eyes see for you the glint of the sun on the coats of our horses and the silent stillness of the red rocks, and the water of the rivers running warm in the canyons," Rehena said in a tone of blessing. "God teaches us with this land, Roy Mustang, son of Amestris. My people tell stories of when it was green and full of wild birds, and stories of times when no rain fell and we were driven north to the ice lands to find water for the goats and our horses. Rich caravans have traveled here under the cool of the moon, and kings have ridden to war under the sun. There have been great cities here, and nomads singing around the wells. We say 'the stones know much, and the wind whispers in old voices.'"

The words brought the timeless moonlight almost close enough to touch. Roy paused a moment, then murmured, "Some day, Elder, I hope to learn some of that history."

"If you wish I will tell you some of the stories after the meal is finished...and perhaps you will speak of your people?

"I'd be honored," Roy answered.

"It will be so, then," Rehena said warmly. "Not many of your nation have ever said they would listen to our stories."

"Then I'll listen even more carefully, so I can accurately repeat what I hear."

Rehena paused, then said in a more formal register, "You are wiser than your face, Roy Mustang."

Roy blinked. "I'm afraid I don't understand what that means, Madam Rehena. What does my face say?"

Her fingers touched his shoulder, then brushed just beneath the row of stitches across his cheek. "Your face says you are a young man, but your words come from a soul with white hair."

Roy's breath caught. _Sazamuz_. He chose his answer with care. "I can't see my face or my hair, Elder. I rely on the people around me to be my mirrors."

The rumble that went around the table at Rehena's translation of the comment told Roy he'd provoked thought. What those thoughts were, his hosts kept to themselves.

With the meal finished, Rehena led Roy into another room and handed him onto a well-cushioned bench. Rehena spoke, and after a bit of taut discussion someone climbed the steps, and came down with a young child who burbled and shook something wooden that rattled and clicked. The family bustled around him, and unfamiliar scrapes and even a few heavy thumps of wood on wood filled his ears. Roy turned this way and that, trying to guess what the sounds meant without asking. Jzhenbah's voice spoke from the wall opposite Roy, and Samuj answered. Roy identified their task as woodworking of some kind by the sound of blades on wood. Someone else was sewing something—the hiss of thread running through fabric gave it away. Rehena herself sat nearby and made herself comfortable, then said, "I will spin, as old women do, and spin for you a story, Roy Mustang. Do you know the story of the world's making?"

Roy rested his hands on his knees. "No, Ma'am. I'd like to hear it, if you'll tell it."

Rehena began, the words slow as she translated. "We tell it so-before the world was, before the people were, before the stars or the sun and moon shone, God dreamed in the dark silence. And God dreamed of the things that were not, saw the light that had no lamp, and heard the sounds that were silent. It was so for a long time and no time at all, because in a place that is no place there is no time." She paused, then added, "We say, 'so it is told' and 'so we will tell it.' I say "_y__ulsh hikyahyi_."

The family answered reflexively. "_O__lschka zimyair._"

"So it is told, and so we will tell it," Roy repeated. "_Ohzka...Olza..."_

_ "Ol-schka," _Rehena said slowly. "_Olschka zim-yai-ir"._

_ "Olzaka simyahr_," Roy said, knowing he was missing at least a few of the details.

"Yes," Rehena said with approval. "So it was told to me by my grandmother, and it was told to her by her grandmother. When God woke, God saw nothing, heard nothing, had nothing and no one, but God remembered the dreams of all that was not. So God made for herself a voice, and she sang to the silence, and there was sound. And God made for herself a lantern that was the sun, so there would be light. So God was pleased, and filled all of that place-before with the light of the lantern and the sound of her voice. This is what we sing of, when we sing and dance for a birth, because just as a child is born from a woman, so the world was born from God. _Yulsh hikyahyi._

** "**_Olschka zimyair_," the family answered without missing a beat.

Rehena murmured softly in Ishbalan for a moment, then switched back into Amestrian. "In time, God thought again of the dreams of that which was not, and God made with her hands the world, and put it close to her lantern to warm it and show its shape to her eyes. She was pleased, and she shaped the world so there would be a place for water and the creatures of the water, and a place for land and the creatures of the land, and trees for the birds of the air to build nests. For God loves the brightly-colored birds and the shining fish in the water and the things that walk upon the land. Do you understand this, Roy Mustang? Do my words speak clearly?"

"You're very clear, Vrua Rehena," Roy answered. "I'm curious as to why you use the word "she" for God. I thought your God was 'he.'"

"God was before there was male and female," Rehena explained. "There is not a word in your language for _iva_, so I say 'she', because God is the womb of life. Others say 'he' because God stands as the man guarding his children in the night."

Roy squashed the comment that leapt to mind, and said instead, "_Ee__va. _ I'll remember that." He smiled. "I like the idea of the sun as God's lantern. There are scholars among my people who spend a lot of time arguing over how big and how far away the sun is, and what's it's made of."

"Our scholars have spent many centuries and rivers of ink wondering what God uses as lamp oil," Rehena said with amusement in her tone. "It seems to me this is a foolish thing to do, when one can't reach the sun to find out the truth, and there is so much to learn here on the world God made for us."

"In my experience there's always someone who thinks 'impossible' means 'something I haven't tried yet'," Roy said ruefully. "Who knows, maybe someday one of them will find a way to go to the sun and find out what makes it shine."

"Perhaps. We say "God makes many surprises."

Something whirred, then the click-buzzzz-click of a loom started somewhere off to Roy's left. Rehena went on comfortably, "Will you hear more of the story?"

** "**Oh, yes of course," Roy answered, turning his attention back to the elderly woman. "I didn't realize you weren't finished."

There was a bit of humor in the answer. "The story is unfolding even today, in this house and in every house in the world. We say that God created men and women, and put them in the finest valley of all the world she made, where the water ran clean and cool to a deep lake of many fish, some the size of two men, and where the trees grew tall to shade the people. And though there were many men and many women, there were no races between them, and they all spoke and understood each other, and all of them saw God's face near the sun that was God's lantern, and heard God's voice in the soft breezes in the trees. They ate the fish of the lake and the good things that grew in the valley, and they were ever close to God, as the infant is close to her mother. So God was pleased with the people, and they grew strong and had many children, and their voices filled the valley as God's voice filled all that was and all that is."

Roy found himself slipping into the story, picturing giant fish and a deep forest. The part of his mind devoted to his mission weighed the political and personal risks and realities, then allowed the rest of him to relax and show rapt interest.

"It was a time of peace and laughter-the childhood of all the world," Rehena went on. "But every child must grow and learn, and in time God saw that the people did not grow. They learned nothing new, made nothing the first of their kind had not made, and thought nothing of their blessings, as they had never known the world without them. They sang and they danced for God to please her, but their souls were shallow as a child's bowl and thin as the new shoots of grain in the spring. God said, 'These people I have made are only children, they hear me always and bend ever to my will. I will take my voice from their ears and hide my face from them, and I will see what they do when they choose their paths themselves." So God took her voice from the wind, and created from a piece of the world a mask that is the moon, so the people would not know where she was. So God watched to see what the people would do."

"If people then were the way people are now, some of them probably got into a lot of trouble," Roy murmured.

"Some cried to God as a child cries for her mother. Some were angry, and cursed God loudly. Still others sat down to wait for God to return. But God did not take away the mask of the moon, and did not speak to the people. And as the people had children, and grandchildren, and the grandchildren had grandchildren, and still God was silent, the valley filled with so many people that they cut down the trees to make room for themselves, and they caught so many great fish that there were no more of them to eat. And when there were no more fish, and all the good plants in the valley were eaten up, the hungry people went out of the valley, and they killed the animals of the plains and ate them. Some of the people walked away, far to the south, and God's lantern the sun made them dark like old wood. They made bricks of clay and built towers to the sky to worship the lantern that is the sun and the mask that is the moon, because they had forgotten the truth of God. Some people walked away to the east, where the moon rises, and their faces became like the moon, pale and round. And they found there the sea, with its many fish and the great creatures that live in the deeps. They made boats and fished for the creatures, and they built temples of stone to the sea serpents they worshiped, for they too had forgotten God. Those who walked away to the west heard the thunder and thought God had returned in anger, so they built fires and sacrificed their children to calm the roaring-but God is not in the thunder, so the western peoples went astray. The colors of the fires mark them still-their beards are red and yellow and black. Those who walked to the north found the ice, and the white bears and wolves. They saw the bright snakes of winter fire in the sky, and they said to each other, "See! It is God!", and they worshiped the cold fire, and thought they read God's words in the turning of the snakes. They looked so long into the night sky that their eyes became black, and their bodies turned pale with the cold. There are not many of them left, in these times-looking too long at the sky gives the wolves time to close their circle."

"And yet...there are enough of the northern people to threaten my own land. So the wolves haven't gotten all of them yet," Roy murmured.

"Perhaps they are not so numerous as they would have you think," Jzhenbah rumbled. "A man's eye is easily tricked. Your people have claimed much of their land, as you took much of ours."

"That may be true," Roy allowed. "But the Drachmans have a history of trying to conquer everyone on their borders and turn defeated enemies into slaves."

"Some would call that justice," Jzhenbah growled.

"The wise would call that foolish," Rehena said forbiddingly. "The foreigner who is conquered and put into chains does not think of learning the ways of God and teaching his children to do what is right. He thinks of freeing himself and his family, and claiming revenge in his master's blood." She stopped as something moved near Roy's foot.

An infant hand took hold of his pant leg and pulled. The child stood, using Roy's knee for support, crowing and bouncing on baby legs.

Roy smiled and bent toward the child, then felt his face fall as Nerah spoke sharply and swooped in to scoop up the youngster. The baby wailed and Nerah shushed with nervousness.

Roy dropped his outstretched hands to his knees and said quietly, "Perhaps it's time I go back to the weaver woman's house."

"Perhaps. It is very tiring to be a guest in a strange house," Rehena answered.

"And I don't want to overstay my welcome." Roy stood. "I hope that we can do this sort of thing again sometime, Elder. Would you join us at our table? I'm afraid Scar and I wouldn't be able to provide you with such an excellent meal, but I enjoyed talking with you and hearing your story."

"It would honor me to sit at your table, and you will hear as many stories as you have ears to hear," Rehena answered warmly. "Jzhenbah will walk with you to guide you back to the weaver-woman's house."

"Thank you," Roy said with a small polite bow. "You've been more than gracious." "And you are a guest of courtesy and wisdom." There was a creak and a rustle of fabric, then the Elder took Roy's hands. "I have fourteen grandchildren, Roy Mustang. I have buried two sons and a daughter, and I am an old woman. You rode across the desert blind with one who hunted your people for a guide, and you have shed your blood to seal the end of the war." She squeezed his hands and spoke in firmer tones. "I believe you are truly penitent, and you have the strength and the wisdom to lead your people to a new path."

"Again, thank you. Please thank your family for their hospitality and tolerance," Roy said.

Rehena spoke to Jzhenbah, then released Roy's hands. The Amestrian Emissary took the warrior-priest's arm and did his best to ignore the man's grim silence and concentrate on following without falling.

Roy waited until Scar closed the door behind Jzhenbah, then fumbled his way to a chair and sank into it.

"You were gone longer than I expected," the apostate commented.

"Rehena's determined to give me a chance to win over her tribe, starting with her family," Roy answered. He propped his elbows on the table and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. "Some of them are more open to the idea than others."

"Did you expect anything different?" Scar asked in a nonplussed tone.

"No." Roy sighed and straightened up. "Frankly I'm surprised that she trusted me enough to extend the invitation, then insist that her daughter-in-law bring the baby down to the living room to hear your story of how the world began." He ran his hand over his face. "I'm not sure whether that was _sazamuz_ for me or just trying to push her family into accepting me." He tugged his bangs. "On a more mundane topic, how do I find a barber around here?"

"You won't. Women cut the hair of their men."

"So...does that mean you and I have to cut each others' hair?" Roy frowned.

"No, that means you should ask one of the _yevarshedaht_ to tell the Elders you'd like someone to see to your hair." Scar paused, then went on archly, "And I'd rather shave my head than let a blind man near it with scissors."

"Why?" Roy asked in mock innocence. "I promise I won't say your new haircut looks awful."

Scar gave that the snort it merited, and changed the subject.

The radio hiss gave way to a barrage of clicks. Roy Mustang took his fingers from the carved board representing Scar's tattoos and put the headset over his ears. It was a standard military code set, without the cues he and his people used to indicate that they were secure enough to talk. Roy relaxed and listened in idle curiosity, then startled as his own coded military enlistment number chattered over the airwaves. _Colonel Roy Mustang, your king is in check._

Roy blinked, then found the telegraphy key. _But your queen stands at my side. This is a surprise, General._

There was an acknowledging pattern, then a familiar voice. "Your people have been busy, my boy. I'm surprised there's any ink left in the city, with all the reports and signatures they've written."

"They've always been diligent," Roy answered. "I hope they're working as hard for you as they did for me."

"Don't be silly, Roy, they may report to me, but they're still working for you. Fortunately they're not doing anything I didn't expect or don't approve of. All I had to do was substitute civilian trains for military equipment and change a few routes."

"I'm glad to hear that. My hosts asked me when to expect the release of their people today, and brought up some other things they'd consider acts of good faith."

"Oh? What is it they'd like?"

"They asked that we send the people in the camps to Ata Dargan and Sarmisay. They're going to set up some camps of their own on their side of the border to help families and tribes reunite. They've also asked for supplies and their horses—the ones with metallic colors in their coats."

"Hmm—that almost sounds like they're asking for what they need to mount a retaliatory campaign."

"I'm sure there will be some attempts to turn back and strike Amestris, sir. We should probably be prepared to handle a few raiders along the border. But the impression I get is that the majority of these people just want their relatives to come home, and from a practical standpoint, there are a lot of reasons we should do everything we can to get the Ishbalans resettled in their own country."

"More now than in the past," General Grumman agreed. "Have your people told you what's happening in the west?"

"Only that General Armstrong has moved part of her army that direction."

"Yes, she has. Creta's been very interested in our politics of late, and we've had some trouble in the far western mountains. Seems someone's been trying to stir up the westerners with rhetoric about their ancestral Cretan roots."

"And getting access to the coal and gold mines in those mountains is only a bonus, I'm sure." Roy said dryly. "So we have to get the Ishbalans out of those mines before they get swept into a rebellion in the west."

"Olivia's troops are going to the west to stabilize the western army and make sure the changeover from Ishbalan to local mine labor goes smoothly," Grumman agreed blandly. "Once they have work to do and money coming in, I'm sure the westerners will be less interested in going up against an army led by the Ice Queen of Briggs just to change which capital they send their taxes to."

"No doubt," Roy said. "Her ideas about training and discipline will probably be an unpleasant shock to the western commanders, though."

"It's good to put the troops through some hard training from time to time, don't you agree?" The general's tone was still mild. "A little shakeup of the routine keeps men from getting soft and complacent."

"As long as you're sure of the one doing the shaking," Roy answered.

"I'm sure she'll take the western divisions in hand just as she did the northern ones," Grumman said calmly. "In a few months we'll have a western army ready to take on God himself."

"Let's pray we don't need one," Roy said with a crook of a grin. He straightened up in his chair and said, "You should probably have some reserve equipment and troops ready to hand, though, just in case."

"And you'd recommend drawing them from Ishbal?" Grumman chuckled. "Don't worry about that, my boy, I'd have started ordering a pullout within the next few days even if your people hadn't given those orders for me. I think I'm going to march them southwest rather than due west, though."

"Is Aerugo stirring up border trouble too?" Roy frowned.

"Aerugo's always hoping our backs will turn long enough for a little invasion or two," the general answered. "I expected one or more of the queens to try the border, Colonel. You take care of keeping the Ishbalans busy sorting themselves out and arguing about what to do with you and that stone you carried in your baggage, and Olivia and I will handle things here at home. I'll see about rounding up some horses to add to the confusion."

"Yes, sir." Roy kept his tone relaxed with effort. "When should I tell the Elders to expect the first of their people to arrive for that sorting?"

"That depends on how many train crews we can convince to come out of retirement for a little while, and how many locomotives and passenger cars we can spare from normal service. Perhaps I'll ask dear Olivia to find out whether the Armstrong Locomotive Works can loan us some, hmm?"

"I'll leave it in your hands, General."

"Thank you, Roy. I do enjoy seeing my plans come together and play out. Command is such a satisfying role, don't you agree?"

Roy kept his tone neutral. "Yes, sir, it is."

"I'm sure you miss barking orders and seeing your subordinates scurry to obey," Grumman went on. "But let me know what you'd like to say, and this old dog will bark it all over the country for you, if need be."

"Understood, sir. Does the old dog have orders for me?"

"Tell the Ishbalans their relatives will be waiting for them in Ata Dargan and Sarmisay about three or four weeks from now, and I'd personally appreciate it if they left the columns moving southwest alone."

"I'll do that."

"Good. Good night, Roy. Give your people my warmest regards when you talk to them." Grumman tapped out the end-transmission sequence, leaving Roy alone with the radio hissing in his ears and Grumman's tacit warnings ringing clear in his mind.


	7. Chapter 11

The second radio call of the night came began with a measured series of clicks. "_If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken."_

Roy smiled and supplied the next phrase of the poem._"Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools."_

It was the next transmission that confirmed the identity. "_Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken/And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools."_

It wasn't really necessary to go any further, but he liked the poem. "_If you can make one heap of all your winnings; And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss."_

She humored him and followed the pattern. "_And lose, and start again at your beginnings/  
>And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew<br>To serve your turn long after they are gone." _

_"__And so hold on when there is nothing in you; Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'" It's good to hear from you, Hawkeye._

_I'm glad you're safe, sir, _Riza Hawkeye replied. _Security on this end isn't certain. I think we should keep to telegraph transmission and cadre-specific encryption protocols for this and future reports._

Roy paused. _Understood. I talked to Grumman earlier. He knows we borrowed his pen, and he made it clear that he'll tolerate it as long as our activities don't interfere with his._

_What do you think he has in mind?_

_For now, keeping our neighbors from invading or trying to overthrow the new government before it's even formed...and keeping General Armstrong out of Central until the biggest decisions have been made. He's calling up civilian train crews from retirement—he'll put the Ishbalans in the western camps on passenger trains and send them to Ata Dargan and Sarmisay. _

_Which solves a lot of problems for him in one move. I'll get Breda to make sure those trains aren't overloaded and have enough supplies to get all those people to the border without anyone going hungry._

_Good. My hosts also asked for the holy books and artifacts looted from their temples and as many of their horses as we can find—the long-legged ones with metal sheens in their coats._

_I'm familiar with the breed, sir. I'll put Jean on it._

_Good. Grumman probably won't interfere as long as we don't start threatening his ability to keep the army running._

_He probably wants the Ishbalans too busy allocating resources and arguing among themselves to be a threat. _Roy's lieutenant had no illusions about her grandfather.

_Keeping us conveniently occupied, too. I think we should adopt a similar strategy._

_That work's being done for us. Falman reports that the Intelligence department is monitoring activity on every border and every district capital as well as Central, and there's so much coming in they've had to bring in more clerks—including a few known spies._

_Give me an executive summary._

_The Drachmans have the largest contingent of spies in the country. Drachma offered an alliance against Creta and Aerugo in a letter that arrived in Central three days ago. _

_Clumsy._

_It's entirely in line with typical Drachman tactics, sir. What's worrying Intelligence is that there seems to be an elite spy corps operating within the larger network, and __they're__not falling for the usual tricks._

_Competent Drachman spies? That could be a problem._

_Especially if they've been here longer than we think._

Roy paused as the potential ramifications of that sank in. _Any idea what they're planning?_

_If Intelligence has one, it's being kept from Falman and our other sources. The staff read is that Drachma is looking for opportunities to assassinate anyone who's still in power in the military and civilian command structures._

_Hamhanded, but effective. It's a little too typical for Drachma. Keep an eye out for hints that there's something more subtle below the surface._

_Of course, sir. Creta's trying to stir up rebellion in the west._

_Yes, Grumman told me about that. He's using it as a way to keep General Armstrong away from Central._

_I'm sure she's aware of that, Colonel. Most of her troops have gone west, but a few units have "gone on vacation"-together. A lot of them have taken their families camping, fishing, and hunting in Piyr Isay._

_Have they been visiting the Havocs?_

_It's hard not to in Piyr Isay, but the store's been busy and Luc and Adrian have had a lot of customers with ripped saddle skirts and lame horses. Luc says his customers aren't annoyed and embarrassed enough about the rips, and Adrian says the lame horses are either lame because someone's deliberately made them lame or they have long-standing physical problems that would be obvious to anyone who rides as competently as these men do._

_So it's an intimidation campaign. I wonder what she doesn't want us to hear about. Has the Havoc clan responded?_

_They're having a lot of fun playing country bumpkins and small-time racketeers, and the kids have made a game of finding the phone taps. I don't think the General expected "peasants" to be so organized._

_Maybe not. She is an aristocrat, after all. Still, operate as though she knows her people are getting the runaround._

_Will do, sir._

_Has Olivia taken any interest in the south?_

_She's been getting briefings, sir, but I think she's more focused on the north and west. General Grumman's shifting the troops from Central to the south. The Aerugan queens are sending in emissaries during the day and spies at night._

_Hedging their bets. Very Aerugan. Grumman told me he's going to move the troops from Ishbal southwest to the Aerugan border._

_Which puts the most experienced men in position to catch anyone trying to smuggle weapons to the Ishbalans or march an army through Ishbalan territory to attack us from the east. How long do you think it will take the Ishbalans to realize they're being used as an early warning system?_

_Maybe a whole minute and a half, if my hosts are typical Elders. I had dinner with Elder Rehena and her family tonight, and by my count she had four reasons for the invitation alone._

_What do you think she's trying to do?_

_To borrow Scar's metaphor, she's walking between lions._

It was such a huge array, so big and so complex, but he _had_ to comprehend it and he was running out of time. He glanced over the whole, then looked down to focus on the detail-

-and his vision dimmed and constricted, until he could see only a tiny blur. His heart fell into his stomach and fluttered there as he dropped to his hands and knees and put his face down to the line, tracing its edges with the first finger of each hand, desperately squinting and trying to focus on the rapidly-fading contrast between light and dark-

He jerked awake into his blindness. Closed his eyes for a long moment with the half-dreaming thought that he'd just opened them wrong. Indifferent reality pushed into his waking mind, and he let his eyes slip open again, knowing there wouldn't be even the blur of the dream. It still ached every time he confirmed it. There was sunlight out there. He could feel the contrast in warmth where it fell across his right hand. That was all light was to him anymore, and all it would ever be.

"_You can't see anything at all?" "Nothing."_

Roy rubbed a piece of the blanket between his fingers and realized he had no idea what color it was.

_"__I'm sorry, Colonel." A professionally apologetic tone and the doctor's fingers holding his right eye open. "If it was simple damage to the eye we'd have some options. But this—there's nothing there. Even the optic nerves are gone."_

_A smaller hand on his cheek and a younger voice, "Even the best doctors of Xing couldn't bring back his sight, Alphonse."_

_Another young voice, without the hollow ring he was accustomed to, but nonetheless recognizable. "Are you sure, Mei?"_

_"__Alkahestry works with the qi flowing through the body," The girl sounded truly remorseful, if only because she couldn't do as her friend asked. "The qi can't build a part of the body that isn't there. I can help the nerves in his hands heal well, but that's all."_

Roy's hand clenched into a fist around the edge of the blanket.

_"__Roy Mustang. You are blind, and so you must be led or wear bruises from your falls...You will suffer every day that you open your eyes without seeing the sun..." _

The Amestrian Emissary sat up and held his right hand in front of his face, struggling to remember what his own hands _looked_ like. He finally pulled his knees to his face and let his eyes do the only thing they could anymore.

If Scar noticed any signs of tears on Roy's face, he said nothing about it. In fact, he didn't say much of anything. Elder Nikai arrived later in the morning, bringing a basket loaded with more igran fruit along with some other vegetables and fruits Roy could more readily identify. The Elder also provided a package of tea—then brusquely ordered Scar to brew a pot.

Roy kept an ear toward the kitchen and the sound of the Ishbalan exile stoking up the stove, then turned his face toward the Elder. "My people gave me some more details about the return of your people, if this is an appropriate time and place to talk business, Admi."

"I came because this is an appropriate time, Emissary. I also have matters of nations to speak of. What did your people say?"

"They're arranging for trains to pick up the people in the camps near our western border and bring them east to Ata Dargan. They should arrive in three weeks to a month." Roy laid his right hand down flat on the table and went on. "My people are going to search for the horses you asked for, and see about tracking down any holy books taken from your temples. I can't promise there will be much to find, but we'll do our best."

"That is all we can ask," the Elder said formally. "Perhaps you asked of the matter of the soldiers in our lands."

"I did. I'm told General Grumman is planning to move those troops to the southwest. I don't know when the movement will begin, but I expect it to be soon."

"Ah." Nikai didn't go on.

Roy waited for a moment, then ventured, "You said you had news for me?"

"I did. You spoke of your country's wish to send emissaries to Xing through the lands of our wandering brothers. This is not a simple matter, but we will do our best."

"That's all we can ask," Roy answered. "May I ask why it's not simple?"

"You might ask Etan to tell you more of the thoughts of his brothers and sisters among the _mozhkarishki_. I can say only that the wandering tribes do not share their water or their grazing gladly."

"I see. Would we have to negotiate separately with each tribe, then?"

"You will have to be patient and offer perhaps more than you can easily give." Nikai sighed. "Etan came himself to speak of these things, and that is more than I would have said the _mozhkarishki _would do."

"Why is that? Forgive me, Elder, but I'm not familiar with the...mozekahrike?"

"_Mozhkarishki_. They are the people of the eastern deserts. They choose tents over houses and ride when and where they please."

"And they don't like coming into" Roy restrained the word _civilization_ "settled towns?"

"In their eyes those who build stone houses do this only to have a place to keep possessions and books of little value," Nikai said crisply. "There is little that we have that they need or want. It is their custom to send a man from their western sister tribes to speak for them to the people of the towns and foreigners."

"But they chose not to this time. Or at least Etan's tribe did." Roy bobbed his head thoughtfully. "I'm glad they want to take part in the negotiations."

"Every tribe that hears of your coming and our talking with you wants to argue for one action or another," Nikai said. "The message riders come and go day and night."

"May I ask what actions we're talking about?"

"I speak only for Ganeha and Nochi, Emissary. I say that you must ask Etan, if you would know the minds of the _mozhkarishki_."

"Ah." Roy paused. "I'm sorry, I'm still learning how decisions are made here."

"There is no crime in not knowing a stranger's customs," Nikai said calmly. "It is only wrong to refuse the knowledge when it is offered."

"I'm here to learn as well as to negotiate," Roy replied.

"You also teach," Nikai answered. He left a little while later, leaving Roy to wonder how many layers there were in those three words.

Two days passed more or less quietly. Izena, with her grandmother and uncle as escorts, visited to bring more ointment and make sure the cuts were healing well. Roy typed up his notes in the most cryptic language he could, to save paper. His nightly radio calls confirmed that General Grumman had ordered the Amestrian troops in Ishbal to start moving south and west, and the shuffling of train crews and equipment necessary to move the people from the prison camps to Sarmisay was underway. Kain Fury and Vato Falman had gathered the books and notebooks Roy had asked for, but hadn't yet had time to dig into them. There was nothing to do but wait and try not to let boredom drive him out of his mind.

Colonel Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist (retired) and Amestrian Emissary to Ishbal, pushed the pieces of fruit around in the bowl and got the business ends of the fers in his right hand closed around one of them. The fruit salad was more of a way to practice with the unfamiliar utensils than lunch; he wasn't actually all that hungry. Therefore the sound of hooves on cobbles outside got his attention immediately. What sounded like several horses stopped somewhere near the gate, and voices spoke in swift Ishbalan.

Roy turned to the window, then back toward his guide, who'd been quietly cleaning the kitchen. "Scar, would you look outside and tell me who's out there?"

The Ishbalan exile answered readily, "They are men of the _mozhkarishki_, and they've brought your horse."

"My horse?" Roy lifted an eyebrow. "I take it I'm going for a ride?"

"Perhaps," Scar answered with a guarded note in his tone. "But the eastern tribes sometimes act on strange visions. It's wiser to ask than assume you understand."

"I see." Roy got up. "Would you take me to the gate, then?"

"Let me put the bowl in the cellar." Scar came and picked it up. "You aren't a poor man to jump up and run to see what a stranger wants when he arrives in the middle of the day."

Roy took his fers to the sink. "So how long should we leave them cooling their heels?"

"Long enough to wash your fers and your face, then put on your sandals. It's polite to offer them tea under your roof, but as they are of the eastern tribes, they'll probably refuse." Scar's voice descended into the cellar, and he went on as he came back up into the kitchen. "If they've brought your horse for you to ride and not as a different kind of message, say that I will come with you to lead your horse and to translate. The _mozhkariski_ choose not to use Amestrian or any other foreign language any more than they must, and their own language is full of metaphors and the old stories."

"Not to mention I want your eyes and your interpretation of what's going on under the surface." Roy ran water over the fers in his hands and pushed his fingertips along the right edge of the sink until they bumped into the scrub brush, then picked it up. "What other messages could they be trying to send by bringing Ghost here? The obvious one would be a hint to get on and ride back home."

"She is saddled, so that may be the intended meaning. She is also smaller and her coat doesn't shine as their horses' coats do."

"Meaning what, that she's not well cared for or that she's an inferior breed?" Roy frowned.

"The _mozhkarishki_ believe themselves to be 'the Chosen of the chosen', and their horses to be the purest bred." A growl slipped into Scar's voice as he went on. "In their eyes, those of us who are descended from the 'slave tribes' are mongrels tainted by the blood of _varisti." _

"I hesitate to ask what that makes me," Roy said.

"If your horse isn't here for you to ride I'll tell you," Scar grunted. "Pray that she is."

Once the fers were clean and set out to dry, Roy washed his face and tied on his sandals, then took Scar's arm and followed him to the gate, where the men on horseback waited. There were two distinct scratches of sandals from the walls near the gate—the warrior-priests on watch wanted him to know of their presence. He acknowledged them by turning his head and giving a small nod to each of them, then addressed the visitors. "Good afternoon. Would you gentlemen like to come in to have some tea while we talk?"

Scar translated, and one of the mounted men answered, speaking in slow phrases punctuated by momentary pauses.

Scar said in Amestrian, "He didn't offer so much as a trader's name, and he speaks to me as though speaking to a man of slow wits. He says he and his tribesmen have brought your horse so that you may ride with them to their camp."

Roy raised a quizzical eyebrow toward the nomads at his gate. "What an unusual and unexpected invitation," he said mildly. "Why was it extended, I wonder?"

Another exchange in slow Ishbalan, then Scar said, "Etan gave his tribesmen a message for you. 'If you will come and face the Free Tribes, we will pour tea for you and speak of what you ask of us.'"

"Interesting." Roy lifted his chin. "I came to talk with your people, so if you'll give me a minute to get my cloak I'll accept your offer. My friend here will come along to lead my horse and make sure we understand each other." He turned back toward the house without waiting for an answer, and kept his head up and his stride confident as Scar led him the few steps across the yard to the doorstep. Once inside, he went through to the back porch to take his riding cloak down from the line surrounding the bathtub, then into the bedroom to get his gloves and tuck them under his belt. Then he stood there in the bedroom and gave himself two deep inhales and slow exhales to clear his mind and prepare for a battle of words and wits. Scar confirmed that the nomads were still waiting by the gate, and led Roy to Ghost's side. The smell of horse and leather and dust brought back some of the tension of the ride across the desert, and Roy firmly disciplined his face and body to matter-of-fact calm as he accepted a leg up from Scar and let the exile take Ghost's lead rope and tug her into motion.

The _mozhkarishki_ men set a pace just a little too fast for comfort as they led Roy and Scar through the ruins. The brisk trot forced Scar into a run that soon had him breathing hard, and Ghost snorted, breaking into a canter for a few strides before dropping back into a fast trot, her tail swishing in equine irritation.

They made a turn and slowed to a walk, and Roy's foot brushed stone as Scar led Ghost in an erratic series of slow sharp turns and steps up and down. "The houses have fallen into the street," the exile explained gruffly, a little winded.

"Let's take it slow and easy," Roy answered. "Ghost needs a little break, and I don't want her to slip and hurt herself on uneven footing."

"A wise man listens to his horse and cares for her as he cares for his servant," Scar said. He led Ghost another step, then sucked in a short breath that gave Roy an instant's warning before something whistled through the air above the horse's head and she bounced on all four legs and shied. Roy wrapped his legs around Ghost's barrel and grabbed for the pommel and his horse's mane. Ghost danced a little in the confined space among the big building stones, banging Roy's knee against one of them, then quieted and stood, tense.

"Scar—what the _hell_ just happened?" Roy straightened in the saddle and reached down to rub his outraged knee.

"A man of the _mozhkarishki_ shot an arrow toward you," Scar answered in a flat, ugly tone. "I didn't see his face or his sash."

Hooves clacked on stone, and Roy turned toward the soft stretch of leather of someone dismounting, then remounting a moment later. "Scar, what do you see?" He kept his tone level with difficulty.

"The man to your right picked up the arrow and is bringing it to you," Scar answered with an edge. "Take it and show it to Etan."

The man on horseback approached, and laid the arrow against Roy's arm until he took it. "Believe me, I have every intention of finding out who shot this and whether he acted alone or under someone else's orders." He lifted his chin and set his face into a command mask. "Let's go." He held the arrow in plain view across the pommel of his saddle in one fist as Scar nudged Ghost in the shoulder to move her away from the stone, then led her forward. Roy kept his back straight and head high while his nomad escort led him—at a comfortable walk—out beyond the ruined buildings of the ancient city.

The open air and sand of the desert soaked up sound, and Roy found himself straining for the slight creaks of leather and the occasional snort from one horse or another. The desert breeze fluttered the edge of his cloak and his shaggy bangs around his face, and he could smell Ghost, but the near-silence combined with his blindness-

"Scar, what do you see?" He didn't particularly care what the Ishbalan said, so long as he talked.

"I see the ruins of a pump house—it may have fed the fields, in the ancient days. The eastern tribes have set their camp around it. I see the flags of nine tribes—I don't know their names. They've pitched their tents in the pattern that accepts traders."

"That sounds like a good sign."

"It means they will at least allow a stranger as far as the well without challenge."

"I see." Roy straightened a little in his saddle, aware of the ears around him that might or might not understand Amestrian. "That's a significant courtesy, in a place where water is so precious."

"And one that most likely wasn't offered without some argument." Scar lowered his voice a little further. "Remember that. It's unheard of for an Elder of the _mozhkarishki_ to come to talk to a foreigner at all. Etan risks much to invite you among his people. He can only give you so much more before he begins to lose face among the tribes."

"Like the ones who'd rather shoot diplomats than sit down to tea," Roy answered grimly. He gripped the arrow in his right hand a little more tightly.

Elder Etan met the Amestrian emissary and personally led him with a hand on his back from Ghost's side to the shade of a canopy under which a carpet had been spread. As no one offered to take it from him and he didn't have anywhere else to put it, Roy laid the arrow that had been shot at him down at his side and said nothing about it. He accepted a drink of water from the well, and didn't try to hide the relief the drink gave him. To his surprise, Scar was also afforded a few swallows of the most precious commodity the desert nomads could offer. Other people sat carefully outside Roy's arm's reach, and Etan began the discussions with a measured statement that Scar interpreted in formal tones.

"I am Etan, and I speak for more than my tribe. I came to this place with my tribe because the words came to me that one had come from Amestris our enemy and asked those who speak for the village tribes for peace. This was a strange thing to my ears, so I chose to come here to Fallen Xerxes to see the stranger myself. I went among the stones and I saw there a foreign man who was indeed a soldier of our enemy Amestris. I saw that this man was a war alchemist, and that for his sins God had taken the light from his eyes. With those who speak for the village tribes among the stones of Fallen Xerxes, I said that the blind one would shed the last blood of the war his people brought to mine, and it has been done. You wear the scars of that day, Roy Mustang. Do you say that what I have said is true, or do you hold my words false?"

"What you say is true in all but one detail, Elder," Roy answered. "I was a State Alchemist until the day of the eclipse. That day changed me and my entire country. I'm not a soldier any more. I speak for the new government of my country as a civilian."

Scar rendered that somehow, then took his time to interpret Etan's answer.

"I have heard this, and I will remember it. Perhaps then you will say whether it is true that you came here because I sent truthful men to you with the words that if you would come and sit in our camp, we would sit near the well and talk of matters of nations in peace."

Roy chose his words with care. "That's true. You invited me, and I came of my own free will. I'm here to talk about relations between your people and mine."

"All of us here have heard these things, and we will remember it," Etan said through Scar. "So we will have tea, and we will talk. You ask to ride across our lands all the way to Xing. Perhaps to Bharat as well, is this so?"

_Here we go..._"It's been a long time since my people last had regular contact with Bharat," Roy said. "I'm sure the new government will want to send someone to talk to them."

"And yet on the way these people will search for water. Their animals will graze in the valleys where our horses and our goats eat. Perhaps there will be so many of them that the Free Tribes will go hungry."

"I doubt that will be an issue anytime soon. It's going to take years of diplomacy to establish trade terms. We're talking about a few emissaries and messengers on horseback, nothing more." Roy heard liquid pouring to his left, and accepted the cup nudged against his knee. He sipped the tea and went on. "We could discuss using multiple routes, or setting a limit on how many Amestrian diplomatic caravans could cross your land every year."

Several voices spoke up after Scar had passed that along. The suspicion behind the words needed no translation. Etan listened and answered each voice in turn, then told his guest, "The tribes say that it is very easy to make promises, but our eyes have seen the past. We have watched for generations, and we have seen that your people do not choose to talk to other peoples. In the place of words you choose war. Perhaps the ones you will say are emissaries and messengers will be in truth scouts sent to find the wells in the desert. Perhaps the armies will follow."

"To be honest, Elder, there's a reason even the old regime didn't try that. As you just said, there isn't much water or food to be found in your territory. Even if our leaders wanted to try and invade Bharat or Xing, they wouldn't send the armies through the desert. The logistics of supplying large groups of men in the field with food and water, not to mention the fuel for trucks, are difficult enough in well-mapped territory with good transportation routes and some local resources to augment the trucked-in supplies. Without accurate maps, solid roads, and the ability to live off the land along the way, maintaining long supply lines becomes a bigger battle than the actual invasion."

"Yet your armies invaded the villages in the desert. They are there now with their tanks and trucks, and when they need food and water they take it from the village tribes."

"That occupation has all but bankrupted my country," Roy said flatly. "General Grumman is moving those troops out of Ishbal as we speak." He went back to the subject he wanted to talk about. "It could benefit your people to allow a few caravans to cross your land. You could sit with the diplomats and rulers of the countries on your borders, and make sure your interests were protected."

"We could," Etan allowed. "Or we could say that there will be no caravans at all."

There it was. "That's a strong statement."

"It is what many tribes say. We gain nothing and risk much, if we allow foreigners to cross our lands."

"Would it change what those tribes say if we were to offer something of value in exchange for the crossing?"

"Perhaps for some. Others will say that gold and jewels are worthless if the well is dry."

"Then maybe we could drill our own wells," Roy offered.

"Or you could make peace with your enemies of Aerugo, and pay them to guide you and carry you on their ships."

"We could," Roy answered. "but that wouldn't be in our best interests or yours. My people sent me to end the war, but I want to go beyond that. Will you hear what I propose?"

"We are listening with interest, Roy Mustang," Etan answered through Scar.

"Thank you." Roy resisted the urge to lick his lips and betray his nerves. "A big part of the reason our leaders could convince our population that it was right to invade and occupy Ishbal was that most of our people had never even seen an Ishbalan in person, much less learned anything about your history and customs. When I first crossed the border, I believed what my commanding officers had told me about Ishbalans, most of which was either a huge distortion of the truth or an outright lie. If even a few of my people traveled through your land with your people as guides, they would know firsthand what was and wasn't true. There would be reasons not to pick a fight again."

That prompted more prolonged and vehement discussion. Etan finally said something that stopped the arguments, and said to Roy, "You say that your people have been taught to hate and fear us, yet you ask my people to ride beside yours and show them the way through our lands. Is this so?"

"That's so."

"There are those who say the only way to speak to an Amestrian is with the bow, the rifle, or the sling."

"Like the one who shot this at me while I walked under the protection of your men?" Roy touched the arrow lying beside him.

"No. That one is your ally."

Roy swallowed the natural sarcastic retort and said, "I don't understand. How can someone who tried to kill me be my ally?"

"Your servant saw him. Our men are not so careless as to be seen by their prey. Nor do they miss such an easy shot. The arrow was spent to warn you and your servant, Amestrian. Keep it close to you and let it remind you that the quiver protects the sharp edges and shows only the feathers." Etan raised his voice a little, and Scar raised his unconsciously as he translated. "We must consider what you have said. Perhaps we will meet and have tea again at some later time."

"Perhaps we will." Roy took the arrow and got to his feet. "And perhaps this arrow will be the last one taken from the quiver for a while."

(Note: The poem Roy and Riza are quoting to each other in the first scene of this chapter is Rudyard Kipling's "If". It fits them eerily well.)


End file.
